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Get ready for the flood of jokey 80s TV show remakes that will now be unleashed upon us.
OPENINGS: 21 JUMP STREET (Sony) fell ever-so-slightly on Saturday, and if it fails to hit its $35M weekend estimate, it won’t miss by much. CASA DE MI PADRE (Pantelion/Lionsgate), though, is predicting a highly suspect 19% Sunday drop (no picture in the Top 10 is estimating less than 30%) despite a virtually invisible Saturday increase, and that may well pull the picture below $2M for the weekend when final numbers are announced. JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME (Paramount Vantage), couldn’t connect with an audience at all–at only 254 theatres, it had a lower per-theatre average than the 2d weekend of John Carter–as Hollywood continues to try and figure out how to sell a Duplass Brothers indie.
HOLDOVERS: JOHN CARTER (Disney) fell 55%, but the worse news is that preliminary overseas numbers show the picture falling 40% from last weekend, even with the addition of China (without China, the result would have been similar to the 55% US drop), and with only Japan as the final major market yet to open, Carter may not get much higher than $300M worldwide, small change compared to what it would need to recoup its vast production and marketing costs. Meanwhile, Roadside Attractions must have done something wrong, because FRIENDS WITH KIDS, after a promising opening weekend, had about the worst expansion imaginable, a 55% drop in per-theatre boxoffice that will probably stop the picture dead in its tracks. A THOUSAND WORDS (Paramount) had a meaninglessly decent 39% drop, and SILENT HOUSE (Open Road) fell a dreadful 69%.
Family movies in general had a soft Saturday (possibly because Friday was misleadingly strong due to schools closed for spring vacation), and THE LORAX (Universal) fell 41%. GOOD DEEDS (Lionsgate/Summit) will end up as one of only 4 Tyler Perry movies to total less than $40M at the boxoffice. THE ARTIST (Weinstein), for all its awards and very expensive (for an art-house movie) marketing campaign, took a 49% tumble and will end up as only mildly profitable–will that make any studios question the value of throwing money into an all-out Oscar campaign?
LIMITED RELEASES: SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN (CBS) had an OK expansion to 62 theatres, with a $7200 per-theatre gross. BEING FLYNN (Focus), though, with a $1600 average in 88 theatres, is done. FOOTNOTE (Sony Classics), still in just 6 theatres, is doing well with a $12K average. THE KID WITH A BIKE (IFC) had a good $17K average in its 3-theatre opening.
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