FRIDAY AUGUST 30 Box Office Report

• Tweet
• Email

• Tweet
• Email

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #35 of 2013 looks like a very decent $95 million for the top 12 films, up 16% from the average Friday-Sunday portion of recent Labor Day weekends.  One Direction: All of Us and the out-of-nowhere Instructions Not Included opened well, and continued strength from The Butler and We’re the Millers make this Labor Day weekend better than its normal sluggish pace.

Opening at 2,735 theaters Friday, One Direction: This Is Us from Sony grossed $8.8 million Friday and is on track for a $21.4 million opening three-day weekend (above the $16.5 million ShowbuzzDaily forecast). The film is pacing toward a three-day average of $7,800 per theater for the weekend (comfortably above the $5,333 opening weekend average for all wide-release films the last two years). The film should total $26.7 million through Labor Day. Critical sentiment is actually decent for a pop music concert film (69% positive overall at RottenTomatoes and a slightly lower 62% with top critics). One Direction is headed for $53 million total domestic.

Opening at 2,130 theaters Friday, Getaway from Warner Brothers grossed $1.4 million Friday and is headed for a $4.4 million opening weekend (below our $6.3 million forecast). The film is pacing toward a bad three-day average of $2,000 per theater for the weekend. The film should total $5.4 million through Monday. Critical sentiment is horrible: 2% positive overall (Lawrence Toppman of the Charlotte Observer and Norman Wilner of NOW Toronto are the lone supporters) and a unanimous 0% positive with top critics. Getaway is headed for $5 million total domestic.

Opening at 870 theaters Wednesday, Closed Circuit from Universal/Focus grossed $0.75 million Friday and is on track for a $2.8 million opening weekend (near our $2.7 million forecast). The film is pacing toward a weak three-day average of $3,200 per theater for the weekend. The film should $4.1 million through Monday for its first six days. Critical sentiment is mediocre: 44% positive overall and with top critics. Closed Circuit is headed for $8 million total domestic.

Opening at 347 theaters Friday, Instructions Not Included from Lionsgate/Summit and Mexican director Eugenio Derbez grossed $1.9 million Friday and is headed toward a stunning $6.2 million opening weekend (not forecast by us). The film is pacing toward an excellent three-day average of $22,700 per theater for the opening weekend. Through Monday, the film should total $7.9 million. Critical sentiment is unclear: only 4 reviews so far at RottenTomatoes (2 of which are positive), but the audience has definitely found it. 

The final domestic gross estimates for both Lee Daniels’ The Butler and We’re the Millers have been upgraded yet again (to $112 million and $137 million, respectively).

Note: The table above summarizes an early look at the weekend. The first column is a reminder of each film’s ShowBuzzDaily Forecast for the weekend (in brackets). The second column, on which the films are sorted, displays the new weekend projection for each film, based on the Friday numbers (the third column). The final column is a preliminary estimate of the ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Total number for the film’s total run in North America. A “++” indicates the Domestic number has been upgraded; a “–” indicates a downgrade.

In case you missed them, click to see this week’s Weekend Predictions.