Welcome to this week’s Movie Math, where
Zac Efron got some truly fantastic news - his
We Are Your Friends is no longer the lowest
debut of all time for a movie opening on over
two thousand screens!
Luckily, it’s a record he didn’t have
to hold onto for long as Jem and the Holograms
just picked it up - surely not the type of
record Universal had in mind when they greenlit
the adaptation.
And it seems Bill Murray’s Richie Lanz might
as well be their manager, as Rock the Kasbah
opened pretty much on par.
But those are just SOME of a sour notes Hollywood
hit at the box office this weekend, in what’s
turning out to be one of the most dismal fall
movie seasons EVER.
Oh, it’s so bad!
Where to even begin?!
I guess we should start with The Last Witch
Hunter, which even though it’s the best
of the bunch is probably the last Witch Hunter
movie Vin Diesel will ever make.
With a budget rumored to be anywhere from
seventy to ninety million, it debuted merely
at number four with just under eleven million.
That’s HALF of Riddick’s debut two years
ago, and tied with Babylon AD - the last movie
Diesel made before he cried “Uncle” and
went back to the Fast and Furious franchise.
Then Paramount’s experiment with Paranormal
Activity The Ghost Dimension got off to a
terrifying start, as opened in just sixth
place with a little over eight million.
All the other Paranormal Activity movies have
opened at third place or higher, and usually
at number one.
Maybe fans know it’ll be released digitally
in less than a month and are waiting...?
But while only Ghost Dimension has a shortened
window between its theatrical and digital
release, that does seem to be kind of theme
here.
Moviegoers are deciding which movies actually
warrant a big screen and which don’t, and
buying movie tickets accordingly.
It had seemed like the midrange movie was
making a bit of a comeback at the end of this
summer, but with work, school and Fall TV
now in full swing - not to mention the holidays
starting to pick up - midrange movies are
once again persona non grata at the multiplex.
A whole category of filmmaking, wiped out!
Well, okay, so some people didn’t see The
Last Witch Hunter and the latest Paranormal
Activity movie - do we really need to panic?
Well, take a look at what happened to Steve
Jobs!
After a stellar two weeks in limited release,
the biopic finally went wide - and seems to
be the movie equivalent of the iWatch...
At number eleven last week, Steve Jobs was
only able to move up to seventh place and
couldn’t even hit double digits in terms
of gross.
After this and The Walk, other awards contenders
are surely worried they’ll implode at the
box office as well.
But on the bright side, this is very good
news for Mad Max Fury Road, as surely word
will spread that if Hollywood doesn’t want
record low ratings for the Oscars this year,
they better at least nominate the George Miller
flick...in main categories!
We’ll get back to this weekend’s top ten
in just a minute, but first let’s pay a
visit to poor ol’ Rock the Kasbah and Jem...
Bill Murray’s comedy opened at number thirteen
and is, obviously, the lowest debut of his
career - which is saying something!
As the former SNL comedian looked at the trades
this morning, one must imagine that every
reason he had for turning down Ghostbusters
3 just crumbled.
And wow, I bet Scooter Braun is being really
nice to Justin Beiber and Ariana Grande this
morning, as it looks like he’ll be unable
to escape their vortexes for a movie career.
Yes, the Braun, Jon Chu and Jason Blum Jem
had a box office debut that seemed to mirror
moviegoers’ reaction to the trailer - that
this film is a non-starter.
And like my earlier comment about audiences
deciding for themselves what belongs on the
big screen vs the small screen, we can add
that they’re also deciding what should even
be a movie and what shouldn’t.
In contrast, audiences USED to trust Hollywood’s
judgment on both counts.
That’s a BIG change.
But even beyond Jem being a black mark on
the resume of everyone involved, this is a
very troubling debut for Hasbro’s AllSpark
Pictures, which was founded to develop and
finance movies for properties Hollywood-proper
doesn’t feel are viable.
So much for proving Hollywood wrong...
I mean, nobody loves studio notes, but it’s
a process, and at least the results are never
THIS bad.
And yeah, looks like Bill Murray could use
some studio notes too, as Open Road didn’t
agree to distribute Kabah until it had finished
shooting.
Now, back to the top ten, where audiences
only seemed interested in Matt Damon and Halloween.
Yes, The Martian went back home - to first
place - with Goosebumps basically shadowing
it.
Meanwhile Bridge of Spies could at least boast
the lowest drop in the top ten, just twenty-six
percent, while Crimson Peak had the worst
drop at fifty-eight percent.
With both Steve Jobs and Crimson Peak, it’s
a real one-eighty for Universal after their
record breaking summer, but they can at least
take solace that - as BTT viewer Randhir Soondarsingh
pointed out - they won Wednesday with their
Back to the Future 2 re-release.
Then in the specialty market, Suffragette
opened in four theaters and unfortunately
few showed up to rally for the cause...
Then Hollywood has to slog through one more
dismal weekend before it will supposedly rain
money with Spectre and The Peanuts Movie.
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...
