There were no surprises at the Thursday box office, and certainly no pleasant ones for the previous day’s openings. Ticket sales won’t have the usual Friday pop today, as many have other plans for the 4th of July, but Saturday should rebound nicely.
OPENINGS: All of the Wednesday arrivals dropped on their 2d day of release. The biggest decline was for TAMMY (Warners), down 11% to $5.5M, and not likely to have a 3-day weekend much above $20M. Like the weekend’s other openings, it had a low production budget, but unlike the others, it also carries a big-time marketing pricetag, so breakeven is probably the only realistic goal. DELIVER US FROM EVIL (Screen Gems/Sony) fell 7% to $2.7M, and has a $10M or so 3-day weekend ahead, which again won’t get it into profit. EARTH TO ECHO (Relativity) had the best hold, down just 2% to $2.6M, and may perk up with weekend matinees, but it’s still a minor effort that won’t generate more than $12M for the Fri-Sun period. The propaganda of AMERICA (Lionsgate) is finding far fewer takers this time around than the director’s 2016: Obama’s America did 2 years ago, down 4% to $625K, and despite having the lowest theatre count of any of the week’s newcomers, it has the smallest per-theatre average of the bunch. It might hit $2.5M over the weekend, roughly the same as 2016 made on its first wide Friday alone.
HOLDOVERS: Day-to-day increases in the neighborhood of 25% were the rule of the day, with a few outliers. TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (Paramount) was of course on top, up 25% to $9.7M, and likely to hit $178M by Sunday after a $40M 3-day weekend. That will be the highest 10-day total of 2014, although the lowest ever of the Transformers franchise. 22 JUMP STREET (Columbia/Sony) and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 (DreamWorks Animation) remained in a virtual daily tie, with $2.5M for Jump and $2.4M for Dragon (they were actually just $40K apart), and $10M weekends likely for both. MALEFICENT (Disney) earned $1.3M on Thursday, on its way to a $5-6M weekend. JERSEY BOYS (Warners) and THINK LIKE A MAN TOO (Screen Gems/Sony) were both at $1.1M on Thursday (Think actually had a better increase, up 31%), and should have $4-5M 3-day weekends.
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