Welcome to this week's Movie Math, where soaring
high at the box office turned out to be more
difficult than expected for several movies.
As expected, once again Mark Watney prevailed,
holding onto the number one spot with just
a thirty percent drop - mighty impressive.
He's still floating a bit behind Sandra Bullock's
Dr Ryan Stone, who dropped just about twenty
percent in her second weekend with a one hundred
and twenty-two million two week total.
In comparison, The Martian is at one oh eight.
It has about a hundred million overseas as
well though, making for a worldwide total
to date of two hundred and twenty-six million
- so indeed it's all systems go for the Ridley
Scott space flick.
As for awards season, like Gravity The Martian
is also coming up on some stiff art-house
competition - just wait until you see what's
going on in the specialty market.
If only the top ten could boast such headlines!
instead there's some real doom and gloom going
on, as Warner Bros Pan had the weekend all
to itself but could do nothing with it.
The only new wide release did even worse than
the most sobering projections, opening with
just fifteen and a half million at number
three.
While that's laughable in comparison to the
debuts of Disney's live action fairy tales,
it's sadly right in line with Hugh Jackman's
other non X-Men flicks like Chappie, Prisoners,
Australia and even the pre The Dark Knight
Prestige!
In fact, Jackman's hardly improved since Swordfish
back in 2001, his first leading role post
his breakout turn in X-Men.
So Hugh Jackman says he's now finally ready
to be James Bond, an offer he turned down
a few years ago?
With box office numbers like these, he should
be fighting to remain Wolverine - although
we'll see how X-Men Apocalypse fares without
him.
With one more outing as Wolverine planned
and the Olympic bio Eddie the Eagle with Taron
Edgerton planned, his real future might lie
in musicals ala Les Mis as he'll also appear
in Broadway 4D while the circus musical The
Greatest Showman on Earth is set for 2017.
Yes, it appears after years of snikting for
his dinner, Jackman will now have to sing.
It's also worth noting that Pan fared even
worse than last year's white-washed Exodus,
becoming the second recent film in a row to
implode from whitewashing.
The real test though will be Ghost in the
Shell with Scarlett Johansson, as maybe Hollywood
is simply not whitewashing with big enough
stars.
Will you be able to resist THIS gaijin Motoko?
So while nobody believed Levi Miller could
fly, they couldn't even believe Joseph Gordon-Levitt
could WALK on a tightrope!
Or even more troubling, audience might have
simply not cared.
Going wide after a limited IMAX only debut
last weekend, where The Walk wasn't even able
to make the top ten, this weekend in wide
release it only managed to climb to seventh
place.
Now while we all knew that Joseph Gordon-Levitt
wasn't much of a box office draw, this has
got be embarrassing for Robert Zemeckis who
was ONCE a box office brand.
Luckily for Sony their scales were balanced
by Hotel Transylvania's boffo third week performance
where it remained in second place for the
second weekend in a row.
Falling once again in the mere thirtieth percentile
range, the sequel is so far about fifteen
million ahead of the original Hotel Transylvania.
Worldwide though it still has a ways to go,
yet a number of high roller guests have yet
to check in including most of Europe, Australia,
Russia and of course China, which won't get
a room at Hotel Transylvania 2 until December.
Elsewhere in the box office, The Intern boasted
the strongest hold in its third weekend, just
about twenty-five percent, and fascinatingly
doing quite well in South Korea!
Although, when you consider Asia's long tradition
of respect for their elders - and their aging
population - it actually makes a lot of sense.
No China release date is set, but The Intern
did just open in Japan...
The Scorch Trials also dropped just thirty
percent in its fourth weekend, yet while it
was clearly not a box office sprinter like
its predecessor right out of the gate, it
does seem to be much of a long distance runner
either.
Then there's Sicario which dropped forty percent
in just its second weekend of wide release,
hardly the head-turner it was in limited release.
Mediocre word of mouth or Emily Blunt strikes
out again, it's hard to tell, but this will
surely take some of the wind of Sicario's
awards campaign.
But Steve Jobs is a serious contender, actually
opening in just four theaters with the per
theater average awards contenders are supposed
to boast.
In fact, the Aaron Sorkin-Danny Boyle bio
has the fifteenth highest opening weekend
per theater average of all time, joining prestige
pics like The Grand Budapest Hotel, American
Hustle, The Imitation Game and even American
Sniper.
In stark contrast to Sicario, Steve Jobs'
awards chances just got a whole lot brighter.
As for this coming weekend, Sony hopes to
dominate the Halloween movie audience with
a one-two punch, while Universal's own Halloween
contender will have trouble taking on Steven
Spielberg and Tom Hanks, much less Jack Black.
And that's the weekend box office!
I'm Grace Randolph and we just did some Movie
Math!
Thanks for watching, and I hope you'll go
Beyond The Trailer for these other top movies...
