With Halloween, a traditionally slow moviegoing day, falling on Friday next week, this is the de facto Halloween movie weekend, which left a clear path for the low-budget OUIJA (Universal). According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, it pulled in $8M on Friday (including over $900K from Thursday night), which should take it to a weekend as high as $20M. That’s not much compared with Annabelle, which just 3 weeks ago earned $37.1M in its opening weekend, but Ouija reportedly cost only $5M to produce, and even with a major studio marketing campaign behind it, it should turn a fair profit.
Buoyed by remarkably good reviews, JOHN WICK (Lionsgate) still isn’t doing all that well, with $5.5M on Friday (almost $900K from Thursday night), but expectations were so low that its likely $15M weekend looks like a win. Lionsgate has limited rights on the Keanu Reeves thriller, which also means a limited investment, but it does foot the bill for all the US marketing, which means that even at a better than anticipated revenue level, it still won’t be much of a success.
ST. VINCENT (Weinstein) expanded to 2282 theatres with an OK $2.7M that should get it over $8M for the weekend. The movie wasn’t expensive, but with high-profile openings like Birdman around, St Vincent‘s path to awards and a lengthy run at the box office aren’t terribly promising.
FURY (QED/Columbia/Sony) had a 53% dip from last Friday to $4.1M, but that will settle over the course of the weekend to around a 45% drop and $13-14M, on the road to $75M in the US. It’s a solid hold, although the fact that it didn’t face any new A-level competition helped it out. The reigning champion of great holds, though, continues to be GONE GIRL (20th), with a 40% Friday-to-Friday decrease to $3.5M and a probable $12M weekend. It’ll be near $125M by Sunday,. and has $150M in its sights.
Even with no new family product arriving this weekend, BOOK OF LIFE (20th) took a 50% fall from last Friday to $2.5M. As with Fury, that will moderate over the weekend to what should be a 40% drop and $10M, on its way to $50M in the US. Its main competition, ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY (Disney), was down 40% from last Friday to $2M and a likely $8M weekend. It should end up a bit higher than Book of Life, perhaps $60M in the US, and at a lower production cost, although also with less foreign appeal.
THE BEST OF ME (Relativity) dropped almost 60% from last Friday to $1.7M, and should be down 50% for the weekend to $5M, passing quickly to home viewing. THE JUDGE (Warners) fell 40% from last Friday to $1.5M, on its way to a $4.5M weekend and perhaps $35M in the US.
BIRDMAN (Fox Searchlight) expanded to 50 theatres, and averaged $7600 on Friday. That’s a far cry from last Friday’s $34K average at only 4 theatres, but it’s to be expected once an art film moves beyond the coasts. It should average $25K for the weekend, not as good as the 2d weekend of Blue Jasmine, which averaged $37K when it widened to 50 theatres on its 2d weekend, and even farther from the $55K average that The Grand Budapest Hotel had in its expansion to 66 theatres. That suggests Birdman could end up in the $20-25M range in the US, around the same as Boyhood (which averaged $34K when it was at 34 theatres), a film it’ll be seeing quite a bit at awards ceremonies over the next few months.
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