Box Office: Johnny Depp gets Scorched
Sunday, September 20, 2015 at 3:30PM 
Tim here with the weekend box office estimates. After an exciting nailbiter last weekend, things got a lot more sedate. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials took the #1 slot without too much effort, continuing the dominance of YA adaptations about attractive 20something teenagers fighting their way through a post-apocalyptic wilderness. Let's not crack open a bottle of champagne for all those Chosen Ones just yet, though; The Scorch Trials came up just short of the first Maze Runner's debut weekend last September, suggesting that if the franchise isn't necessarily on death's door, it seems to have already hit its theoretical peak.
WEEKEND TOP 10, ESTIMATED
01 Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials $30.3 new
02 Black Mass $23.4 new
03 The Visit $11.4 (cum. $42.3)
04 The Perfect Guy $9.6 (cum. $41.4) Tim's Review
05 Everest $7.6 new
06 War Room $6.3 (cum. $49.1)
07 A Walk in the Woods $2.7 (cum. $24.8) Reviewed at Sundance
08 Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation $2.3 (cum. $191.7) Tim's Review
09 Straight Outta Compton $2.0 (cum. $158.9) Podcast
10 Captive $1.4 new
The weekend's other major wide release, Black Mass, opened to a satisfactory number for what it is - a crime drama for adults, which means it's likely to hold on much longer than Scorch Trials - but it's not quite the triumphant return for Johnny Depp that some of us were quietly hoping for. Compared to his last couple of mega-bombs, it's already an unqualified success: by the end of Sunday, it will have already grossed more than three times as much as the notorious Mortdecai from last winter, and its opening weekend is about as much as the entire lifetime domestic gross of Transcendence. Still, aspiring thinkpiece writers can put away their "Depp is a major movie star again!" ledes for right now.
The most impressive performance in the top ten probably belongs to Everest: the star-packed thriller had a smallish platform opening, mostly limited to IMAX and other large format screens, that propelled it up to an impressive $13,872 per-screen average, by far the biggest of any film in the top ten. But even that pales next to the film that I suspect most of the Film Experience faithful want to hear about: Denis Villaneuve's Sicario, starring Emily Blunt, opened to $390,000 on 6 screens. If that doesn't sound like much, try this on for size: the film's $65,000 per-screen average is the highest of any 2015 release so far. Let's keep out fingers crossed that this means great things for the film as it starts to expand over the next two weeks.
How did you spend your moviegoing weekend?
Reader Comments (7)
My weekend was spent watching 'Clue' again with my wife and sitting for Bergman's 'The Virgin Spring.' I've seen most of Bergman's work, but there is enough there for gaps like this one. Glad to have filled it since it's as good as the decades of praise have hinted at.
I did see 'Black Mass' last week for reviewing purposes, as well as 'The New Girlfriend' and 'Pawn Sacrifice.' All three are solid, if all missing something here and there in that way that is frustrating. Each with moments of greatness. But only moments.
I saw so many movies i can't even remember their names #festivalfatigue
"Black Mass" which was exactly what I expected a film I had already seen. Depp is creepily good but the character is one note psycho; no matter hard they try to humanize him. " The Departed" told the same story better. I love to see Depp play Dracula.
I went to "Everest", the film builds slowly during the first hour, then the second hour is really thrilling. The A list cast is consistently good, I really liked Jason Clarke in particular. Worthwhile to see it in Imax.
SICARIO! Four films so far this year that I've given five-stars to which sounds like a lot because it is, but they have each stoked something inside me that I can't deny and I find it extremely boring when critics rely too much on "let's wait to call it this or that or give it five stars" since what's the point if we're not signally (to ourselves, at least) the films that we hope remain with us for years and decades to come.
FWIW, the four films are Girlhood, Mad Max: Fury Road, Queen of Earth and Sicario. Four films with incredible female roles and presence, which is hardly surprising.
Sicario and Everest: admired both films, loved neither, although the former was on the whole a more "enjoyable" viewing experience. I'm not feeling Blunt as a Best Actress nominee because in my <SPOILERISH> opinion, Benicio Del Toro is the actual stealth lead (and title character) of the movie. Blunt isn't even present for the climactic (and IMO best) scene. </SPOILERISH>.
I saw Grandma and it's definitely better than Ricki and the Flash. I will say Sam Elliot deserves some Oscar attention as his scenes with Lily are the first time the movie really connects with the audience. Lily's injury from (no spoiler here) was pretty ridiculous though.