Family movies continue to be a fairly safe bet for box office glory as Goosebumps took the top spot despite an extremely competitive weekend. Perhaps its secret was that it had no direct competition except for the month old animated picture and, vaguely if you're stretching, the new del Toro picture. People are calling Crimson Peak a flop but that's unduly harsh. With a budget of only $55 million he didn't overspend and, despite media's interest in him, and expectations always saying otherwise he's never been a mainstream director. His biggest hit Pacific Rim certainly didn't earn more than double the gross of any of his other pictures globally because it was awash in del Toro idiosyncracies. It was a straight up, giant robots fighting monsters movie and easy to mistake for Transformers vs Godzilla if you squinted.
Box Office charts and more on the new films after the jump...
BOX OFFICE WIDE
800+ screens (Oct 16th-18th)
01 Goosebumps $23.5 NEW
02 The Martian $21.5 (cum. $143.7) Podcast, Matt's foot-in-mouth tour
03 Bridge of Spies $15.3 NEW Review
04 Crimson Peak $12.8 NEW Review
05 Hotel Transylvania 2 $12.2 (cum. $136.4) Tim on the director Genny Tartakovsky
06 Pan $5.8 (cum. $25.7) Peter Pan Movies
07 The Intern $5.4 (cum. $58.7) Review
08 Sicario $4.5 (cum. $34.6) Podcast, Emily Blunt
09 Woodlawn $4.1 NEW
10 Maze Runner: Scorch Trials $2.7 (cum. $75.4)
The Martian's popularity also probably caused a bit of trouble for Bridge of Spies since Spielberg, no matter the topic, courts the populist (but grown-up) audience. It was tougher out there for the adult pictures since they all chose the same weekend to open. Usually studios avoid these direct face-offs so one wonders what led to this? It surely has to do with studios worrying that you can't begin platforming your Oscar movies until October despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Truth for example, which is quite entertaining playing like a mainstream picture rather than a heady artful endeavour and features two bonafide movie stars (Blanchett and Robert Redford) had a rough bow. At only six theaters it couldn't drum up enough business to land in the top ten of the platformers! It's easy to imagine it opening a lot better AND a lot wider in August or September when it would have stood out a little more. Will it catch on as it expands? Beasts of No Nation fared even worse but Netflix aint worried
Steve Jobs continued to be a very hot ticket (it goes wide next weekend) but the weekend's best per screen average went to TIFF's Audience winner Room, the Brie Larson & Child drama which is so so good and hopefully Oscar bound. I can't wait for y'all to see it (but don't watch the trailer if you can avoid. Gives too much away)
BOX OFFICE LIMITED (excluding prev. wide)
(Oct 16th-18th)
01 Steve Jobs (60 screens) $1.5 (cum. $2.2) Review
02 Ladrones (375 screens) $.6 (cum. $2.4)
03 Goodbye Mr Loser (40 screens) $.3 (cum. $.9)
04 He Named Me Malala (477 screens) $.3 (cum. $1.5)
05 Grandma (136 screens) $.1 (cum. $6.5) Poster Blurb, Lily Tomlin's Filmography
06 Freeheld (148 screens) $.1 (cum. $.3) Reviewish
07 99 Homes (347 screens) $.1 (cum. $1.2) The return of Andrew Garfield Review
08 Room (4 screens) $.1 NEW First Impression
09 Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 (49 screens) $.1 NEW
10 Goodnight Mommy (90 screens) $.09 (cum. $.8) Interview, Oscar Submission
What did you see this weekend?
I took in Bridge of Spies and the documentary Tab Hunter: Confidential. More on those to come.