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| 5 Reasons Why 'Hidden Figures' Crushed 'Patriots Day' at the Box Office Posted:
The thriller about the capture of the terrorists behind the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing expanded wide to 3,120 screens in its fourth weekend, after an awards-season qualifying run on just seven screens. The team of star Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg was expecting the kind of all-American January hit they achieved four years ago with "Lone Survivor." So was the industry, which saw the film tracking at No. 1 in online sales this weekend at Fandango. Analysts expected the drama to make around $20 million this weekend. Yet "Patriots Day" didn't even crack the top five, finishing instead in sixth place with an estimated $12.0 million. This suggests that the film will be lucky to recoup its reported $45 million budget plus a similar amount in marketing and distribution costs. In fact, of the three new wide releases and three expanding-into-wide-release movies, only one finished in the top five. That was "The Bye Bye Man," a low budget horror movie with no stars, which nonetheless debuted with nearly twice the $7 million it was projected to earn. In fact, at an estimated $13.4 million, it's within $400,000 of both "Sing" and "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," for a virtual three-way tie for third place. (Indeed, when final figures are released Tuesday, it could end up ahead of those holdover hits.) How did this underdog succeed where Wahlberg and Berg's epic stumbled? Here are five ways. 1. Been There, Done That That drama opened moderately well, at $20.2 million, but it topped out at $61.4 million, suggesting that viewers were already starting to tire of the formula before "Patriots Day" followed fast on "Horizon"'s heels. 2. No Awards Bump Still, every little bit of positive buzz helps. Look at "La La Land," which scored a record seven Globe wins last Sunday. It jumped into second place this weekend, after six weeks of release, and earned an estimated $14.5 million, for a total of $74.1 million to date. 3. Not Enough Appeal to Female Audiences 4. Too Much Appeal to Older (Male) Audiences "Hidden Figures" showed its broad, cross-racial appeal last weekend when it edged out "Rogue One" for the top spot. Nonetheless, it should have been clear that young people weren't going to show up in great numbers for "Patriots Day" after the film's Thursday night preview. It's a given that older viewers aren't going to see a late-night Thursday movie but will wait for the weekend, but the Thursday take of just $560,000 indicated that young people weren't coming either. Especially young women. Did you happen to catch Wahlberg's visit to "Conan" this week? The star's fellow Bostonian noted that it's been a quarter-century since Wahlberg went from pop star to Calvin Klein underwear model to movie leading man. These days, the pop star-turned-Klein skivvies model is Justin Bieber. At 45, Wahlberg has aged well out of boy-band fan appeal, and the "Patriots" clip screened on "Conan" made him look not much younger than co-stars Kevin Bacon and John Goodman. As an aging action hero, he's not Liam Neeson yet, but he's getting there. 5. Multiplex Pileup Jamie Foxx's crime thriller, "Sleepless," and Ben Affleck's nostalgic gangster picture, "Live by Night," chased the same viewers. Berg and Wahlberg can console themselves that their movie did a lot better than those rivals; "Sleepless" finished eighth with an estimated $8.5 million, while "Live by Night" was way down at No. 11 with an estimated $5.4 million. Not to mention Martin Scorsese's "Silence," which has also come up empty as an awards contender despite strong reviews, and whose expansion into 747 theaters led to a take of just $1.9 million, for a sixteenth-place finish. Nonetheless, the studio went ahead with a costly 3,119-screen release, only to see the "Monster" flounder against holdover kid hits "Sing" and "Moana." Given the movie's reported $125 million cost, it looks like the accountants' dismal predictions were correct. Compared to that belly flop, "Patriots Day's" weekend doesn't look so bad. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Box Office: 'Hidden Figures' Prevails as 'Monster Trucks,' 'Live by Night' Bomb Posted:
LOS ANGELES, Jan 15 (Variety.com) - It's bombs away at the multiplexes. Family film "Monster Trucks" tanked when it debuted over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, while Ben Affleck's "Live by Night" and Martin Scorsese's "Silence" suffered moribund national expansions. Their failures will lead to tens of millions of dollars in red ink for the studios that backed them. "Sleepless," an action-thriller with Jamie Foxx, also suffered an underwhelming opening, getting lost in the onslaught of new releases. "There's almost an unprecedented number of films out there," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at comScore. "It's got to be somewhat daunting and overwhelming for moviegoers." Amidst the carnage, Fox and Chernin Entertainment's"Hidden Figures" retained its box office crown in its second weekend of wide release, earning $20.5 million for the weekend and a projected $25.3 million for the long weekend. That will push its total to $59.7 million. The historical drama about African-American NASA workers during the early days of the space program has been one of the biggest breakouts of awards season. "Hidden Figures" faced stiff competition from Lionsgate's "La La Land," riding high after sweeping the Golden Globe Awards, and STX's "The Bye Bye Man," which earned $14.5 million and $13.4 million, respectively. "La La Land" is widely expected to dominate the Oscar nominations. The musical about lovestruck Angelenos should finish the four-day weekend with another $17.5 million in domestic receipts, which would bring its stateside total to more than $77 million. "The Bye Bye Man's" strong reception is welcome news for STX, which had expected the film to open to roughly $10 million. The horror movie about college students grappling with a deadly supernatural figure cost less than $8 million to produce. It should make $15 million over the four-day holiday. Studio executives said they weren't afraid of the crush of new releases heading into the weekend, because they felt they were the only film targeted to younger females. STX also wanted to release the picture on Friday the 13th, a marketing hook for scary movies. "We knew we were going to be able to get that core audience of females," said Kevin Grayson, STX's domestic distribution president. "Not only did they go on Friday, they continued to go all weekend." Heading into the weekend, most analysts expected CBS Films and Lionsgate's "Patriots Day" to put up more of a fight. The drama about the Boston Marathon Bombing earned $12 million after moving from seven theaters to 3,120 locations. It could make $14.3 million over the four-day stretch. That's below projections -- analysts expected the film to earn as much as $18 million. However, the studios believe that "Patriots Day" could benefit from enthusiastic word-of-mouth. Audiences gave the film a rare A+ CinemaScore. "Monster Trucks'" failure seemed preordained. Last year, Paramount took a $115 million write-down on the film. "Monster Trucks'" reception justified that fiscal white-flag waving. It opened to a pallid $10.5 million and a projected $14.1 million over the holiday, a disastrous result given its $125 million budget. "The movie works for the audience it's intended to work for," said Megan Colligan, Paramount's marketing and distribution head. "It did really well in the midwest and south. It was over 50 percent kids. The balance was good between boys and girls...without a whole lot of competition, it will keep plugging along." Paramount has hit a rough patch. The studio was embroiled in a corporate power struggle that pitted the controlling Redstone family against Philippe Dauman, the former chairman of Paramount's parent company Viacom. The Redstones ultimately prevailed, but the pressure is now on Paramount chief Brad Grey to prove he can deliver more hits. The studio scored with "Fences" and "Arrival," but lost millions on the likes of "Allied," "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows," and "Ben-Hur." "Live by Night's" troubles will hit Affleck hard. He directed, produced, and wrote the Dennis LeHane adaptation, and took a starring role as a charismatic rum runner. Warner Bros. is releasing the $65 million production. It earned a sallow $5.4 million and should end the four-day holiday with just over $6 million, which more or less leaves the gangster picture on the slab. Affleck should be on firmer commercial ground reprising his Dark Knight role in "Justice League" later this year. Open Road's "Sleepless" didn't fare too well either, although it cost significantly less than "Live by Night" and "Monster Trucks." The $30 million production stars Foxx as a morally compromised cop whose extracurricular activities endanger his son. It kicked off with a meager $8.5 million and should end the long weekend with $10.1 million in the till. The studio says that "Sleepless" will make its way into the black because Open Road covered its financial exposure by selling foreign distribution rights and through tax rebates. "Given our economics, this $10 million opening on 'Sleepless' will certainly become profitable for Open Road," said a spokeswoman. Then there's "Silence," a decades-in-the-making religious drama. Scorsese struggled for years to cobble together the financing for this story about Jesuit priests who risk torture and death to spread the gospel in feudal Japan, but audiences seemed to have little appetite for his rumination on faith. "Silence" expanded from 51 theaters to 747 locations, earning just over $2 million for the long weekend. The $50 million film was financed independently. Paramount is distributing the picture. "Marty Scorsese is one of the greatest living filmmakers," said Colligan. "He's earned the right to independently finance a movie and make the movie he wants to make. This is a complicated, beautiful film, one that movie critics have named the best of the year and one that will be taught in film schools for years. It needs to be judged on its merits." Holdovers "Sing" and "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" continued to show strength, with both films earning roughly $13.8 million. "Sing," the latest collaboration between the "Despicable Me" team of Universal and Illumination, has earned $237.2 million stateside. "Rogue One" is now the top-grossing 2016 release with more than $500 million in receipts. It will cross the $1 billion mark at the global box office this week. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
This was supposed to be a coronation weekend for "
"Patriots Day" is Wahlberg and Berg's third collaboration, and their formula is apparent, with Wahlberg playing a real-life ordinary-grunt-turned-hero who shows all-American grit and determination in the face of a cataclysm or disaster. Audiences may have found the formula too familiar, since the star and director's "
Despite its decent reviews and awards-season angling, "Patriots Day" has been a non-factor during the Golden Globes and Oscar races so far. Not that that should hurt it with audiences -- in fact, "Patriots" scored a rare A+ at CinemaScore from paying customers.
Aside from "La La Land," the only movie catering to them was "Bye Bye Man." Horror movies do tend to do well in January, since they're usually the only releases targeted at young women during this season of awards hopefuls and holdover holiday blockbusters. The Friday the 13th opening date was a marketing bonus.
Some pundits suggested that "Patriots" did well on Fandango because it appeals to an older, affluent audience that is more likely to buy tickets online in advance.
There's nothing wrong with relying on an older male demographic... except on a weekend like this one, where several other new or newly-wide releases are competing for the same audience. January is often a movie desert, but this weekend's six new wide movies made for a ticketbuyer traffic jam.
The real disaster of the weekend was new kid film "
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