This will be the last weekend without a mega-hit on top for a while.
OPENINGS: THE OTHER WOMAN (20th) will take the weekend with around $25M after a $9.3M Friday, and the potentially better news is that Diaz’s last hit Bad Teacher was even stronger overseas than in the US (not a sure thing in that genre: recently Anchorman 2 made only about 25% of its worldwide box office outside the US). If Other Woman can repeat that level of global success, it will give 20th a tidy hit.
BRICK MANSIONS (Relativity) is headed to $9-10M after $3.6M on Friday, and will need overseas success (it’s a remake of the French smash District B13, so the premise definitely has foreign appeal) if it’s to be any kind of hit.
THE QUIET ONES (Lionsgate) had a more accurate title than its studio would have liked, barely registering with $1.5M on Friday and a weekend that probably won’t reach $4M. Lionsgate spent a fair amount on expensive network advertising for it over the past few weeks, so even though the production budget was low, this will still be a sizable ouch for the studio.
HOLDOVERS: The battle for 2d place is going to go down to the wire this weekend. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (Disney/Marvel) has the early lead with $4.5M on Friday, which should give it around a $15M weekend. That will bring its US total to nearly $225M, already $50M higher than the first Captain America, not to mention both Thors. Overseas, the giant post-Avengers success of the subfranchise is even more notable: Winter Soldier is already more than double the international box office of the first Captain, and ahead of the first Thor and first two Iron Men, and may pass Thor 2 this weekend.
Giving the Captain a run for his money this weekend is the comparatively puny (insert power of God joke here) HEAVEN IS FOR REAL (TriStar/Sony), which was slightly behind on Friday with $4.1M, but could shoot up with churchgoing audiences on Sunday. (Last Sunday, which admittedly was Easter, Captain America dropped 44% from Saturday while Heaven was only down 23%.) In any case, Heaven now looks like it will move past Son of God and God’s Not Dead as the biggest non-spectacle religious-themed movie of the year.
RIO 2 (20th/Blue Sky) was behind Brick Mansions on Friday with $3.3M, but will likely pass it with matinees this weekend. Nevertheless, without any new family movies in the market, Rio 2 took a big 65% hit from last Friday (which was Good Friday, but still) and looks like it will only reach $125M or so in the US, 15-20% behind the first Rio. More importantly, the movie’s international success is similarly lagging, putting a hole in the future of the franchise.
Both TRANSCENDENCE (Warners) and A HAUNTED HOUSE 2 (Open Road) collapsed from last weekend’s openings, down 74% and 76% from a week ago to a respective $1.3M/$970K. Transcendence may edge out Haunted House $4M to $3M for the weekend and 25M to $20M in US totals, but of course Transcendence is by far the bigger bomb with a giant $200M+ cost in production and worldwide marketing–and it’s shown no strength overseas so far, either. BEARS (Disney) held up better, down 48% from last Friday to $1.2M, but it was already at such a minimal level that a very soft $3.5M weekend and $20M US total is all it can expect.
One last milestone for FROZEN (Disney), which despite having been available on homevideo for weeks has kept selling enough tickets to reach $400M at the US box-office, only the 4th animated film in history (after Shrek 2, The Lion King and Toy Story 3) to do so.
LIMITED RELEASE: Despite mostly rave reviews, Tom Hardy’s one-man show LOCKE (A24) is headed for a middling $22.5K weekend average at 4 NY/LA theatres. THE RAILWAY MAN (Weinstein) expanded to 156 with a low $3K average likely for the weekend.
NEXT WEEKEND: The only question for THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (Sony) is how big it will be. Comparisons with the first Amazing don’t work because that one opened on the Tuesday of July 4th week and already had $75M earned by Friday, but expectations are for $90-100M in the first 3+ days, with screening starting at 7PM on Thursday night. No other wide release will go near Spidey, but a few limited releases will tiptoe into view, notably BELLE (Fox Searchlight) and IDA (Music Box). There will also be a token theatrical run for the Elizabeth Banks VOD release WALK OF SHAME (Focus/Universal).
About the Author
