Sunday, October 15, 2017

Happy Death Day Slices Up Solid Opening Weekend, Foreigner Blows Up Decent Bow While Professor Marston Gets Schooled

If anyone's had a fantastic 2017, it's Blumhouse Productions, the company behind Paranormal Activity, Insidious and The Purge. They've already had Split and especially Get Out makes gobs of money earlier this year and now Happy Death Day is here to be their newest box office hit. With $26.5 million, this one had the tenth biggest debut ever for a Blumhouse movie and has already more than made back its $4.8 million budget. The marketing on these Blumhouse movies continues to be noteworthy and Happy Death Day was no exception with omnipresent and distinctive advertisements making its presence known, not to mention a smartly chosen Friday The 13th release date.

In its second weekend, Blade Runner 2049 went down 54% to gross another $15.1 million. That's a decent drop as far as big-budget sequels go but it's apparent at this point that the film is not going to be holding as well as past early October blockbusters like Gravity and The Martian which each went down 22% and 32%, respectively, in their individual second weekends. This new Blade Runner movie has grossed $60.5 million in ten days and it would require some mighty tiny dips in the weekends ahead to get to $100 million domestically. A final domestic total just under or over $90 million sounds about right.

Looks like Jackie Chan still has some star power left in him after all as The Foreigner debuted to a solid $12.8 million this weekend. While not a record-breaking bow, it's still a noticeably bigger debut than other entries in the subgenre of "older male movie stars kicking butt" such as the $5 million bow of The Gunman and the $11 million debut of Run All Night. Discounting films he provided voice-work for, this is Jackie Chan's eighth biggest domestic opening weekend ever, the tenth biggest opening weekend ever for Pierce Brosnan and the fourth biggest opening weekend ever for STX Entertainment, a studio whose had a rough 2017 and is likely elated that The Foreigner is turning out to be a tidy little hit for them, one that's already crossed $100 million worldwide in fact and should also get past $30 million million domestically.

Going down 39% in its sixth weekend was It, which added another $6 million to its domestic haul that now stands at an amazing $314.9 million. Right behind It was The Mountain Between Us, which dropped 46% to gross another $5.6 million for a middling $20.5 million domestic total. Next up was American Made, which held solidly with a 36% dip and a $5.4 million third weekend haul, bringing it up to $40.1 million after 17 days of release. Can this one get to $50 million in its domestic run? It looks like it just might. Also holding well this frame was Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which went down another 39% and grossed an additional $5.3 million for an $89.6 million cume.

Holdovers rounded out the top ten this weekend, with The LEGO Ninjago Movie coming in at eighth place with a $4.3 million gross, a 38% drop from last weekend, that boost its underwhelming domestic gross to only $51.5 million. My Little Pony; The Movie had a harsher than usual second weekend drop for an animated family movie, going down 55% to gross another $4 million for a domestic gross of only $15.6 million after ten days of release. Capping off the top ten was Victoria & Abdul, which dipped a tiny 25% and grossed another $3.1 million for an $11.3 million domestic gross thus far.

Newcomer Marshall grossed an OK $3 million at 821 locations for a per-theater average of $3,685. I'm surprised Open Road Films didn't put this one into more theaters, though the more subdued marketing seemed to indicate they were always planning to give this one a more restrained release. Faring even worse among new wide releases was Professor Marston & The Wonder Women, which had one of the worst wide release launches of the year as it grossed only $737,000 from 1,229 locations for a disastrous per-theater average of only $600.

In its second weekend of limited release, The Florida Project held well as it grossed another $401,441 from 33 locations for a per-theater average of $12,156. This Sean Baker film has grossed $623,949 after ten days of release and seems poised for a fine box office run. Faring less successful was Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down The White House, which expanded into 89 locations but grossed only $123,707 this frame for a per-theater average of only $1,390 for a domestic total of $257,019. As for limited release debuts, well, the news was mostly just poor all around. Goodbye, Christopher Robin bowed to just $56,000 from 8 theaters for a dismal per-theater average of only $6,222. That's the smallest opening weekend for a Fox Searchlight project since the $27,652 debut of I, Origins in July 2014. If this one manages to get to over $500,000 domestically, I'll be shocked. Breathe didn't fare much better as it grossed only $26,254 from 4 locations for a per-theater average of only $6,564. Believe it or not, this means that Breathe had the worst opening weekend of all-time for indie studio Bleecker Street. No word yet on the box office grosses for newbie limited releases 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene and So B. It, an inspirational family drama about a little girl who is....very very lucky? I dunno, it looked pretty bad but Alfre Woodard's in it and I'm always happy to see her working.

The Top 12 movie this weekend grossed a total of $92.8 million. Like last weekends top 12 total, that's a pretty middle-of-the-road sum and it's gonna take a box office miracle for October 2017, which has so far grossed about $293 million, not to come off as one of the more middling October box offices in a while. Maybe a Geostorm will shake things up and there is always Same Kind Of Different As Me on the horizon....

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