by Nathaniel R
| Weekend Box Office (October 27th-29th) |
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| W I D E 800+ screens |
L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide |
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| 1. 🔺 JIGSAW $16.5 new | 1. 🔺 LET THERE BE LIGHT $1.8 on 378 screens new |
| 2. BOO 2! A MADEA HALLOWEEN $10 (cum. $35.5) | 2. 🔺 THE FLORIDA PROJECT $539k on 145 screens (cum. $2.1) REVIEW 1, REVIEW 2 |
| 3. GEOSTORM $5.6 (cum. $23.5) | 3.🔺 LOVING VINCENT $449k on 114 screens (cum. $2.1) |
| 4. HAPPY DEATH DAY $5.0 (cum. $48.3) | 4. 🔺 GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN $330k on 213 screens (cum. $633k) |
| 5. BLADE RUNNER 2049 $3.9 (cum. $81.3) REVIEW | SHORTS | "BESTS" | 5. 🔺 THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER $221k on 33 screens (cum. $392k) REVIEW |
Moviegoers were in a horror mood -- what else is new? -- which is appropriate for Halloween time. Three of the top five were specifically seasonal while It logged what is probably it's last week in the top ten with another 2 million for its historical box office winnings. It's the highest grossing horror film ever now but only #4 of all time (not adjusted for inflation) in terms of R-rated films. It won't be able to overtake any of the top three: The Passion of the Christ, Deadpool, and American Sniper since it will surely lose a huge swath of theaters next weekend when everything at the multiplexes has to make room for Thor: Ragnarok...
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| 6. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE $3.7 new | 6. 🔺 JANE $151k on 25 screens (cum. $231k) |
| 7. ONLY THE BRAVE $3.4 (cum. $11.9) | 7. 🔺 ALL I SEE IS YOU $135k on 283 screens new |
| 8. THE FOREIGNER $3.2 (cum. $28.8) | 8. 🔺 WONDERSTRUCK $126k on 42 screens (cum. $213k) REVIEW REVIEW |
| 9. SUBURBICON $2.8 new | 9. MARK FELT $94k on 185 screens (cum. $665k) |
| 10. IT $2.4 (cum. $323.7) REVIEW | 5 TAKEAWAYS | 10. 🔺 THE SQUARE $76k on 2 screens new REVIEW |
🔺 = new or significant expansion numbers (in millions unless otherwise noted) from box office mojo |
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[Tangent: Reporting on Breathe now in its third weekend is all messed up with reports of its weekend gross way larger than its cumulative gross which is of course impossible. So we left it off the chart though it would probably be on the limited release top ten. Who knows what it made. We had begun to discount the film's Oscar chances when it had struggled to find anyone to see it in its second platform week -- it seriously had one of the worst per screen averages we'd ever seen for a new Oscar hopeful last weekend -- usually a sign that a film won't continue to expand. If it somehow rallied this weekend we will have to rethink.]
Swedish Oscar submission and Cannes winner The Square led the field of new terms of per screen average with crowded showings albeit only in two theaters. Strangely in a reversal of fate nobody is going to see its Cannes rival another masterful Oscar contender, France's BPM -- this makes us weep. The Square's per screen average this weekend was higher than BPM's total gross to date! Another excellent queer film, God's Own Country, opened to decent numbers but really both films should be selling out arthouses. How to get the LGBT community to support LGBT movies again?
Among the wide releases Jigsaw, an extension of the long running but absent-for-6-years Saw franchise was the easy winner. But when you compare it to the franchise in general it had the second worst opening, defeating only Saw VI from 2009 a year before the series vanished (temporarily).
Outside the charts The Snowman (reviewed) left the top ten in only its second week despite losing no theaters, nun drama The Novitiate (reviewed) with an Oscar-buzzing Melissa Leo opened to a $7526 per screen average, Battle of The Sexes crawled over the $12 million mark while basically leaving theaters (I remain mystified it didn't catch on, as it's so entertaining), and though Victoria and Abdul lost its first theaters it's been a solid arthouse hit with nearly $18 million in the til already.
It's also worth noting that some of Oscar's 170 eligible documentaries are in theaters right now, with Jane, Faces Places, Human Flow, and Kedi leading the documentary box office and Chavela also opening.
WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?