It was a rough box office weekend for any movie that wasn't The Martian or Bridge of Spies, both of which are obviously holding audiences enthralled given their minuscule drops from last weekend (that always equals: word of mouth). In fact, The Martian even got a nifty new poster for its week long run in IMAX theaters. Why it's only getting a week and only now is confusing but it is apparently so? The Martian will be the 8th top grosser of 2015 any second now and then will set its sights on toppling Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation and Cinderella though the top five of the year will remain well out of reach. The lowest grosser among the curren top five is Minions with over $334 milllion in its US coffers and with Star Wars and The Hunger Games still to come in 2015 this is going to be a very high grossing box office year... for the top films at least.
BOX OFFICE WIDE
800+ screens (Oct 30th-Nov 1st)
01 The Martian $11.4 (cum. $182.8) Podcast
02 Goosebumps $10.2 (cum. $57.1)
03 Bridge of Spies $8 (cum. $45.2) Review, Tom Hanks
04 Hotel Translyvania 2 $5.8 (cum. $156) Tim on the director Genny Tartakovsky
05 Burnt $5 NEW
06 The Last Witch Hunter $4.7 (cum. $18.6)
07 Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension $3.4 (cum. $13.5) Review
08 Our Brand is Crisis $3.4 NEW
09 Crimson Peak $3.1 (cum. $27.7) Review
10 Steve Jobs $2.5 (cum. $14.5) Review
BOX OFFICE LIMITED (excluding prev. wide)
(Oct 30th-Nov 1st)
01 Room (49 screens) $.2 (cum. $.7) First Impression
02 The Witness (40 screens) $.1 NEW
03 Suffragette (23 screens) $.1 (cum. $.2) FYC Carey Mulligan
04 Meet the Patels (59 screens) $.07 (cum. $1.4)
05 Ladrones (112 screens) $.07 (cum. $2.9)
06 Goodnight Mommy (71 screens) $.06 (cum. $1) Interview
07 Labyrinth of Lies (49 screens) $.06 (cum. $.4) Interview, Review, Alexander Fehling
08 Nasty Baby (18 screens) $.06 (cum. $.07) Review
09 Goodbye Mr Loser (23 screens) $.05 (cum. $1.2)
10 Love (2 screens) $.03 NEW Interview, Review, Karl Glusman
Somehow audiences weren't even interested in the somewhat bankable Bradley Cooper (Burnt) and the very bankable Sandra Bullock (Our Brand is Crisis) who experienced her worst wide opening ever with less than $4 million -- her previous nadir was Two if By Sea (1996) which opened to just over $10 million. In 1996. Let that sink in.
In the realm of the Oscar movie it's rough out there -- surely because all of them opened at once! Grandma (August) and Sicario (September), for example, neither of which totally broke out but also earned relatively healthy sums given what they were, are looking very smart in hindsight to have opened before the avalanche of adult titles came down spoiling the audience for choice. Over the past two and half decades distributors have created this problem for themselves by training adult audiences to pay no attention to adult fare except around Oscar time. We theorize that this contributed to the rise of quality TV and the decimation of moviegoing audiences who were into quality that didn't involve big budget spectacle. So now all the serious movies get jammed into the same few months and eat into each other's potential audiences: Truth added a thousand theaters but couldn't fill them opening outside the top ten; Steve Jobs has definitely struggled in wide release; Room and Suffragette, both in very limited release aren't packing houses the way Steve Jobs did before the big exansion. Word of mouth could still save Room (it's very early in the run, after all) but with a super crowded marketplace it's hard to win attention even if people really like you.
What this will mean for the Oscars is anyone's guess but Oscars tend to ignore you if you're seen as an outright flop rather than a movie that struggled to find its audience. And, yes, those are very different things.
What did you see this weekend?
Somehow I skipped moviegoing this weekend. Given the ultra weak box office results everywhere, perhaps all of you did, too.