OPENINGS: The Saturday bump for 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE (Bad Robot/Paramount) was 8%, a solid number for its genre that indicates good word of mouth. That gave it a $25.3M weekend, a bit higher than Friday indicated, although still not where it might have gotten had the Cloverfield connection (or relative lack thereof) been clearer. In terms of ultimate box office result, a useful comparison might be to last year’s The Visit, another thriller that was more high-profile than most (thanks to M. Night Shyamalan as the director), which opened at $25.4M and made it to $65.2M. With a modest $15M production budget, that would likely make Lane profitable, although not at the level of the original (and more expensive) Cloverfield‘s $80M. Internationally, Lane is just getting started with a $1.5M weekend in 6 markets.
None of the other arrivals were even close. THE PERFECT MATCH (Lionsgate) looked best, because its $4.2M weekend was earned at a restrained 925 theatres, giving it a fairly healthy per-theatre average of about $4500. It’s not clear whether Lionsgate plans any expansion for next week.
THE YOUNG MESSIAH (Focus/Universal) was at nearly twice as many theatres as Match and earned less, a less than heavenly $3.4M, very much on the low end of its genre considering its theatre count. With Miracles From Heaven opening in a few days, this Messiah is unlikely to return from the dead.
And then there’s THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY (LStar/Village Roadshow/Columbia/Sony), a full-on disaster with $3.2M at over 2200 theatres. This failure wasn’t cheap, either, since its parody of action-adventure sequences brought it to a $40M production budget. Sony has only part of the financial burden on this one, but everyone involved will lose money. Nor will Grimsby be bailed out overseas, where it’s at an anemic $11.2M ($3.4M this weekend) in 34 territories.
ALLEGIANT (Summit/Lionsgate) doesn’t open in the US until Thursday night, but it’s already in 45 overseas markets (not including China), where it’s off to a merely OK start at $26.7M. (Comparisons to Insurgent are shaky because that opened bigger with $48.4M but also more widely in 76 markets.)
HOLDOVERS: Despite all the new openings, ZOOTOPIA (Disney) dominated theatres worldwide. In the US, it declined a tiny 33% from its 1st weekend to $50M. By comparison, the previous top March animation The Lorax fell 45% in its 2d weekend, and Alice In Wonderland was down 46%. Zootopia is at $142.6M, and has weeks of open sailing ahead. Its overseas success is even more remarkable, with a 25% increase from last week even though it didn’t open in any additional territories. That gave it $83.1M for the weekend in 45 markets, with a considerable amount of the world still to come. It’s particularly impressive in China, where it’s gone to $109M after a $56.5M weekend, and could challenge Kung Fu Panda 3‘s $146M as the biggest animated title there ever. The overseas total so far is $288.7M.
In its 5th week, DEADPOOL (20th) continued strong, down 35% to $10.8M and a $328.1M US total, still on the road to $350M. Overseas, it’s at $380M after a $11.3M weekend, and still doesn’t have an opening scheduled in China.
LONDON HAS FALLEN (Millenium/Gramercy/Focus/Universal) took a 51% hit to $10.7M for a $38.9M US total, and will end up around $60M in the US, down nearly 40% from Olympus Has Fallen. WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT (Paramount) held up better but at a lower level, down 38% to $4.6M, with a mild $14.6M US total to date.
GODS OF EGYPT (Summit/Lionsgate) is DOA in the US, down another 52% to $2.5M and a $27.3M total, but has reached $80.5M internationally after a $26.4M weekend, most of it from a China opening. However, that’s still not going to pay for its $250M production/marketing costs.
LIMITED RELEASE: EYE IN THE SKY (Bleecker Street) and HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS (Roadside) had very similar bicoastal starts, Eye in 5 theatres with a $23K per-theatre average, and Doris in 4 with a $21K average. Just a notch below was the documentary CITY OF GOLD (IFC), with a $16K average at 4. EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (Oscilloscope) tripled its run to 75 theatres with a decent $2500 average. KNIGHT OF CUPS (Broad Green) also had a $2500 average, but at 36 theatres.
NEXT WEEKEND: Aside from the US arrival of Allegiant–which only gets 1 clear week before the mega-landing of Batman v. Superman–the only wide opening is Wednesday’s MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN (Columbia/Sony), which is aimed at the Easter Christian crowd, but will hope to go more mainstream with its cast headed by Jennifer Garner and Queen Latifah. MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (Warners) is one of its studio’s periodic attempts to launch a smaller film in limited release, not the Warners specialty.
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