After years in the wilderness, M. Night Shyamalan returned to profitability with last year’s The Visit, and based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, SPLIT (Blumhouse/Universal) will build on that success. Opening day was $13.5M (including $2M from Thursday night), far ahead of Visit‘s $9.2M, and the weekend could be as high as $35M, a great number against Blumhouse’s restrained level of production/marketing costs (around $50M all-in). Given the way Split ends, Shyamalan’s interesting move will be his next one, which might put him back in the bigger-budget game.
There’s no better example of a Hollywood movie made predominantly for foreign markets than XXX: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE (Huahua/Shanghai/Paramount), with its strongly international cast, non-stop action and nonsense plot. In the US, it’s not off to an exciting start, with $7M on Friday (including $1.2M from Thursday night) and a weekend around $18M. That’s nowhere near the $17.3M/$44.5M for the original XXX in 2002, although it’s better than the $4.2M/$12.7M for the Vin Diesel-less 2005 sequel, and it needs to recoup about $175M in production/marketing costs. But the important numbers for Return will be overseas, where the film opened in much of the world this weekend. We’ll see how it fares when Sunday numbers come in.
Two films with major Oscar nomination hopes are riding high on word of mouth. HIDDEN FIGURES (20th) declined just 15% from last Friday to $4.6M, with a $16M weekend ahead. LA LA LAND (Summit/Lionsgate) dipped 39% to $2.5M on Friday and will be close to $90M by Sunday after an $8-9M weekend. Both will go over $100M in the US alone.
SING (Illumination/Universal) is also holding well, down just 33% from last Friday to $2M, and headed for a $8-9M weekend that will put it on the edge of $250M, the #4 animated 2016 release after Finding Dory, Zootopia and The Secret Life of Pets (#5 if one counts The Jungle Book as animated). ROGUE ONE (Lucasfilm/Disney) should have a $7M weekend that keeps it on the road to $525-530M in the US.
Last weekend’s flops only got floppier. MONSTER TRUCKS (Paramount) fell 46% Friday-to-Friday for $1.4M, and will barely be above $20M by Sunday. PATRIOTS DAY (CBS/Lionsgate) fared even worse, down 59% from last Friday to $1.6M for a $5-6M weekend and unlikely to get much above $35M in the US when it’s done. Things got still worse for SLEEPLESS (Open Road), down 67% Friday-to-Friday to $1M, on its way to a $20M US total. THE BYE BYE MAN (STX) would have plunged anyway in its 2d weekend, but the arrival of Split demolished its audience, and it sank by 82% to $1M, and may end up with $25M in the US. LIVE BY NIGHT (RatPac/Warners) was the biggest loser of them all, down 73% from last Friday to $500K, a major blow to its financiers with a US total that may not hit $15M.
THE FOUNDER (Weinstein) was at one time envisioned as an awards prospect, but its 1-week run in December barely caused a ripple, and it’s going nowhere nationally with $1M on Friday (in 1115 theatres) and perhaps a $3M weekend.
The news wasn’t all good for Blumhouse this weekend, as its Christian-aimed THE RESURRECTION OF GAVIN STONE (Blumhouse/High Top/Universal) managed just $350K in 887 theatres on Friday, and will struggle to get past $1M for the weekend.
SILENCE (Paramount) doubled down on last week’s quasi-wide release, raising its theatre count to 1580, but the result remained disastrous with $300K on Friday and a weekend that may not reach $1M, a horrible per-theatre weekend average of around $600.
20TH CENTURY WOMEN (Annapurna/A24) expanded to 650 theatres with marginal results of $350K on Friday and $1M for the weekend, in desperate need of some major Oscar nominations on Tuesday.
Despite mostly rave reviews (although not from the NY Times), the dialogue-less animated art film THE RED TURTLE (Sony Classics) is headed to a mediocre $6K weekend per-theatre average at 3.
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