Will it really be that happy a Father’s Day? Almost every movie in the market is estimating an unusually low Sunday drop because of the holiday, although the Father’s Day effect normally helps only all-family titles.
OPENINGS: It hardly matters whether ROCK OF AGES (Warners) and THAT’S MY BOY (Sony) hit their round-number $15.1M and $13M estimates, as both are resounding bombs. Rock likely won’t have much aftereffect (no one thought Diego Boneta and Julianne Hough were boxoffice draws in the first place, and this isn’t a “real” Tom Cruise movie), but there’s no worse news in the movie industry than when your studio has to announce “We love being in the Adam Sandler business,” as Sony insisted today. Both movies have barely begun their overseas runs, so it’s too early to tell how they’ll do internationally.
HOLDOVERS: MADAGASCAR 3 (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) walked over the competition with a mere 41% drop from last weekend to $35.5M. It’s also leading the weekend overseas, with $53M. That’s down about 1/3 from last weekend with the addition of 15 mid-level territories (declines in holdover territories were consistent with the US, around 40%). PROMETHEUS (20th) is an R-rated title claiming an optimistic 15% drop on Father’s Day, so it can maintain a round-number $20.2M Weekend 2–but last week it overperformed on Sunday, so maybe the number will play out that way. In any case, a 60% drop is very heavy for what’s supposed to be a prestige genre item (and the start of a franchise). Overseas, the film added Latin and South America to its territories and still fell by around 1/3, for a weekend of about $25M.
SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN (Universal) is another movie looking for a strong (11% drop) Father’s Day to reach a weekend decline of only 40%, for $13.8M. It also made $31.2M overseas, up 20% from last week with the addition of Japan (and still in only about half the world). MEN IN BLACK 3 (Sony) is heading toward a $625M worldwide gross, which is fine but not thriving for a movie with $400M+ in production and marketing costs. THE AVENGERS (Disney) is at $1.4B worldwide, with Japan still to come. THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (Fox Searchlight) is tapering off, with a per-theatre average below $2K, but it should still exceed $40M in the US, to go with its $84M overseas (sequel, anyone?).
LIMITED RELEASE: YOUR SISTER’S SISTER (IFC) had a decent opening with a $9K average in 13 theatres. The rest of the news was in expansions. MOONRISE KINGDOM (Focus/Universal) had a $12K average in 178 theatres–its next expansion will tell us whether it has any breakout potential. HYSTERIA (Sony Classics) more than doubled its run to 218 theatres and had a fading $1400 average. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED (FilmDistrict) increased to 46 theatres with a decent $6400 average. PEACE, LOVE AND MISUNDERSTANDING (IFC), though, only had a $1800 average at 77. And LOLA VERSUS (Fox Searchlight) is DOA with a terrible $1100 average at 52.
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