OPENINGS: THE CONJURING (Warners) is off to a great start with a $17M opening day (including $3.3M from Thursday evening), but its real test comes today. Horror movies tend to be very frontloaded and plunge on their second day of release: this year, Mama was an exception, rising 7% on Saturday (and parlaying a $10.1M opening day to a $71.6M total), but Texas Chainsaw fell 23%, Evil Dead dropped 26%, and The Purge plummeted 38%. If Conjuring can generate strong word of mouth–and reviews/exit polls suggest it might–it has a chance to get past $100M before it’s done. Even if it does fall today, it’s already a big hit, and probably the start of a franchise. Who would have thought that, between Bates Motel (for which she was Emmy-nominated this week) and The Conjuring, Vera Farmiga would become America’s biggest horror star?
TURBO (DreamWorks Animation/20th) was too weak a project to slot into the narrow space between Despicable Me 2 and The Smurfs 2, and it’s heading for a $20-25M weekend. It would have fared better in spring or fall, when the family pickings are leaner. But DreamWorks needs to have a summer presence if it’s to be a major animation player, so there it went. The movie will hope for greener pastures overseas, where The Croods recently made 68% of its total box office, but even if Turbo can do the same, it’s not likely to do more than break even.
RED 2 (Lionsgate/Summit) opened $1M below the 2010 original at $6.3M, and since sequels are usually frontloaded (and the first RED opened in October, when there are fewer releases and a mid-level performer can hold onto its theatres more easily), it’s unlikely to get near that movie’s $90.4M total. RED also didn’t get much of a foreign bump, although sequels tend to do better overseas (international audiences love brand names), so RED 2 may make up some of the difference there. In any case, with production/marketing costs in the neighborhood of $200M for this one, a RED 3 probably isn’t in the cards.
Studios employ vast armies of research and marketing people to make sure that audiences are at least potentially interested in a future movie before a green-light for hundreds of millions of dollars is approved. Somehow, though, R.I.P.D. (Universal) got through the cracks, and with a $4.8M start, it’s evident that absolutely no one wanted to see it. Universal is otherwise having such a great summer that it won’t be too damaged by the failure, but the already-dented Ryan Reynolds won’t be starring in any major studio tentpoles for a while.
HOLDOVERS: DESPICABLE ME 2 (Universal) again dominated, having put Monsters University and now Turbo in its rear-view mirror as it prepares to top $275M by the end of the weekend. GROWN UPS 2 (Sony) had a mediocre hold, down 61% from last Friday and likely only to reach $120M or so, which will leave little profit on $200M in production/marketing costs. PACIFIC RIM (Warners/Legendary) is done in the US, down 68% from last Friday and fumbling to even reach a $100M total. The movie was made to be strong overseas, and now it’ll have to be. THE HEAT (20th) was down a mere 34% from last Friday, and WORLD WAR Z (Paramount) fell 45% to a likely $5M weekend, with a long $16.7M still separating it from a US total of $200M. Similarly, it looks like MAN OF STEEL (Warners) won’t hit $300M and THIS IS THE END (Sony) won’t quite make it to $100M.
LIMITED RELEASE: THE WAY, WAY BACK (Fox Searchlight) and FRUITVALE STATION (Weinstein) both expanded well, with Back heading for a $7K per-theatre average at 304 (compared with a $9K average for last year’s Best Exotic Marigold Hotel when it hit 354 theatres), and Fruitvale a $20K+ average at 34. New arrivals were less impressive, as the Kristen Wiig vehicle GIRL MOST LIKELY (Roadside) probably won’t do better than a $3K average at 353, the atrociously-reviewed ONLY GOD FORGIVES (Radius/Weinstein) perhaps a $5K average at 75 (the latter is also available on VOD). The controversial documentary BLACKFISH (Magnolia), though, is off to a good start with a likely $20K average at 4.
NEXT WEEKEND: Everyone is steering clear of THE WOLVERINE (20th), one of the last mega-movies of the summer. On the indie side, attention will be dominated by Woody Allen’s BLUE JASMINE (Sony Pictures Classics).
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