The Boss Baby may have become an internet punching bag (I know I personally thought the trailers looked wretched) but it was the kind of clear-cut easy-to-explain concept that conventional hit animated family movies are made out of. Transporting the demanding personalities of babies into the personality of a similarly demanding businessman with the voice of Alec Baldwin was one that the ads constantly drove home and one that resonated with audiences. I got the trailer for this one on my sold out Thursday night screening of Rogue One three months back and the trailer played like gangbusters, an early sign that this one was a hit in the making. If Boss Baby plays like the last DreamWorks Animation movie to open in late March, Home, it'll end up making $170 million domestically, a strong total for this animated comedy.
Beauty And The Beast had to relinquish the top spot at the box office but still turned in a strong third weekend, gross another $47 million, a 47% drop from last weekend that's better than the third weekend decline of Cinderella, which also had to face a new DreamWorks Animation movie in its third weekend of release. Beauty And The Beast has grossed a phenomenal $395.4 million in seventeen days and, at the very least, will be ending its domestic run in the vicinity of $485-490 million.
Well, it's a good thing they cast a white person in Ghost In The Shell, otherwise the movie would have bombed this weekend! Oh, wait....yeah, this new action film became one of 2017's more noteworthy box office bombs this weekend, grossing only $19 million on a $120 million budget. That's not good at all and is less than half of what Scarlett Johansson's last solo action movie, Lucy, took in on opening weekend despite a much lower budget, an R rating and no pre-existing brand name to prop it up. Its opening weekend is also slightly below what director Rupert Sanders last movie, Snow White And The Huntsman, took in on just its opening day alone.
What went wrong here? Well, the whitewashing of the lead role certainly didn't help, alienating many moviegoers and giving the film early negative buzz that only got maximized when the marketing heavily incorporated imagery associated with Japan (such as a robotic Geisha). Similarly troublesome for the project was the generic marketing that made it look like a knock-off of Lucy without the "Use 100% of your brain to beat up bad guys" gimmick that helped that Luc Besson movie stand out. Many of the TV spots and posters eschewed even a passing reference to the fact Scarlet Johansson's character being a robot, something that could have easily helped it further stand out from the pack. Really, this one's messy marketing just sealed the deal on this movie's fate, with mixed reviews not helping matters. Look for this one to struggle to get past $50 million domestically.
A marketing campaign that solely appealed to die-hard Power Rangers fans gave the new Power Rangers movie a decent opening weekend but that came back to bite it this weekend as it had a massive second-weekend decline that stemmed from how all the Power Rangers fans saw it on opening weekend. This weekend, Power Rangers plummeted 64% to gross another $14.5 million to gross $65 million in ten days. Looks like this one will not be grossing $100 million domestically thanks to its front-loaded nature. Meanwhile, Kong: Skull Island continued to hold decent, grossing another $8.8 million, a 40% drop from last weekend that brings its domestic cume to a solid $147.8 million. Right outside the top five was Logan in sixth place grossing another $6.2 million, meaning it's now grossed $211.8 million after a month of release.
In its sixth weekend of release, Get Out kept on chugging, grossing another $5.8 million, a 34% dip from last weekend, that's now grossed $156.8 million domestically, a stunning domestic cume that will only continue to increase. Failing to rebound after its opening weekend was Life, which dropped 55% to gross only $5.6 million, meaning its now grossed an underwhelming $22.3 million in ten days. Also failing to find momentum after a dismal opening weekend was CHiPS. which went down 47% to gross only $4 million for a 10-day domestic gross of $14.3 million.
Rounding out the top ten was the surprise hit of the weekend, The Zookeeper's Wife, grossing $3.3 million at only 541 locations for a per-theater average of $6,191. That's the biggest limited release opening weekend of the year so far and also ahead of all but one limited release opening weekend (No Manches Frida's $3.6 million bow is the one hold-out) from last year. This is a pretty impressive bow that suggests The Zookeeper's Wife could stick around through April to become one of this years bigger sleeper hits. This is also another good reminder that adult-skewing dramas can still make big bucks in theatrical release even without major Oscar nominations to boost their profile, you just gotta promote them properly.
T2: Trainspotting expanded into 140 theaters and grossed $400,000 for a per-theater average of $2,857. T2: Trainspotting has now grossed $1.1 million and looks like it'll be ending its domestic run just over $3 million, about 20% of the original Trainspotting's entire domestic run. Bowing in 43 theaters was The Devotion Of Suspect X which grossed $330,000 this weekend. Further expanding its theater count this weekend was Personal Shopper, which took in $159,450 (a 26% drop from last weekend) at 150 theaters for an underwhelming per-theater average of $1,063. Personal Shopper has now grossed $791,973 domestically. In its second weekend of release, Wilson plummeted 66% to gross only $115,000 for an anemic ten-day domestic total of $592,329.
Expanding into 42 theaters this weekend was Raw, which grossed another $70,435 for a per-theater average of $1,677, bringing its domestic cume to $303,573. Also expanding this weekend was Song To Song, though it struggled mightily, taking in only $58,747 at 95 locations for a disastrous per-theater average of only $618. The newest Terrence Malick movie has only grossed $325,909 in 17 days of release. Debuting this weekend was a re-release of Donnie Darko, which took in $53,200 at 21 locations for a per-theater average of $2,533. Finally, David Lynch: The Art Life debuted to $12,126 at a single theater.
The Top 12 movies this weekend grossed $166.8 million this weekend, the second best thirteenth weekend ever for any given year only behind the thirteenth frame of 2016 which saw Batman v. Superman premiere. March 2017 closed up with $1.16 billion, easily the biggest March on record (beating out the previous biggest March, March 2016, by 23%) and the first time in history the month of March grossed over a billion dollars. Will April 2017 be as big as the first three months of 2017? I actually don't think so, since The Fate Of The Frious is the only movie that seems poised for big time financially success and the massive box office generated in the past three months (especially in this past March) came from spreading the wealth among multiple titles. That being said, maybe there's some stuff that could surprise me. Certainly April 2017 will get a boost from strong March 2017 holdovers like The Boss Baby and Beauty And The Beast while arthouse titles like The Zookeeper's Wife and Gifted could cross over to mainstream box office success.
No comments:
Post a Comment