Box Office: Bollywood Hoopla

Amir here, with the weekend’s box office report. As predicted last week, the top two films didn’t change at the high end of the pile. Spectre is doing impressive enough business in the US, but its record-breaking haul in China was the real gain. The total worldwide gross of the film surpassed the half billion-dollar mark. There were four new wide releases, three of which landed in the top ten and, embarrassingly, I hadn’t heard of a single one of them before sitting down for this column, so let’s give each a crack.

Love the Coopers, is a family Christmas comedy, and because all mentions of Christmas in November should be banned, we’ll skip over it—it was right behind The Peanuts Movie in third place. The 33, the Antonio Banderas-led film about Chilean miners did as well as a film about such a dark—literally and figuratively—tragedy can do. The real story, however, is India’s Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. It’s an open secret that Bollywood films do really well without significant advertising, but this one is doing even better than usual. Already having the best opening of all time for a Bollywood film in India in the bag, where it opened on the 4-day Diwali weekend, Salman Khan and Sonam Kapoor’s newest venture has the best opening weekend for an Indian film in the UK and one of the top five best in the US.

The Weekend's Top 5
Spectre $35.4m (cum. $130.7m)
The Peanuts Movie $24.2m (cum. $82.4m)
Love the Coopers $8.4m (new)
The Martian $6.7m (cum. $207.4m)
The 33 $5.8m

On the limited side of things, Angelina Jolie’s By the Sea grossed a dismal $9k per screen—it’s a shame; this film looks gorgeous—and James White, one of the under the radar gems at this year’s TIFF fared slightly better, but it’s hard to gauge its success given it’s only playing on one screen.

What did you see this weekend? Are you excited to see Prem Ratan Dhan Payo?

Box Office: The Winner Is Bond... James Bond

Amir here, with the weekend’s box office numbers. The fourth Bond turn by the sexy but no longer enthusiastic Daniel Craig predictably ruled the weekend, scoring the franchise’s second highest opening weekend gross of all time. The highest number belongs to Skyfall, of course, and there was never any chance, with cooler reviews and less general excitement, that Spectre was going to break the series’ record. All things considered this is a great success for everyone involved.

Box Office Top 5
new Spectre $73m
new The Peanuts Movie $45m
The Martian $9.3m (cum. $197m)
Goosebumps $6.9m (cum. $66.4)
Bridge of Spies $6m (cum. $60)

The Peanuts Movie came second and, again, the numbers can be considered successful when one considers the younger generation’s emotional distance with these characters. Both Spectre and Peanuts have another week to spend at the top before their competitions arrive in the form of The Hunger Games and The Good Dinosaur.

New Limited Releases
Miss You Already $570k
Spotlight $300k
Brooklyn $181k
Trumbo $77k
Peggy Guggenheim Art Addict $22k
In Jackson Heights $15k
Theeb $7k

On the limited side of the releases, Oscar hopefuls Spotlight, Brooklyn and Trumbo all entered the fray. Spotlight has the weekend’s highest per theatre average, which certainly isn’t too shabby for a film many are already considering the frontrunner. Whether these numbers can translate to success when the film goes wide remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Steve Jobs continues its lacklustre run. Is it just too soon for people to be interested in a biopic about him?

What did you see this weekend?

The Martian has sturdy legs. Other Oscar contenders are wobbling.

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.

More...

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Bridge of Martian Spies with Crimson Goosebumps

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...

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"Pan" Sinks. "Steve Jobs" Sizzles.

It's your weekend box office report. Both The Martian and The Intern experienced small drops from their previous weekends, reminding everyone that Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway, who co-starred in Interstellar just last year, have always been fairly bankable. Their takes also indicate good word of mouth and leggy runs ahead in future weeks. The news was not good for Hugh Jackman and Pan however, perhaps reminding us that not every movie star can remain bankable when they're buried in silly makeup and made to look unlike themselves - not everyone can be Johnny Depp who people (for whatever reason) like to see buried in cartoonish makeup. Curiously Johnny Depp also once made a bad Peter Pan picture but that's another story...

BOX OFFICE WIDE
800+ screens (Oct 9th-11th)
01 The Martian $37 (cum. $108.7) Podcast, Matt's foot-in-mouth tour
02 Hotel Transylvania 2 $20.3 (cum. $116.8) Tim on the director Genny Tartakovsky
03 Pan $15.5 NEW Peter Pan Movies
04 The Intern $8.6 (cum. $49.5) Review
05 Sicario $7.3 (cum. $26.7) Podcast, Emily Blunt
06 Maze Runner: Scorch Trials $5.2 (cum. $70.6)
07 The Walk $3.6 (cum. $6.3) Review
08 Black Mass $3.1 (cum. $57.5)
09 Everest $3 (cum. $38.2)
10 The Visit $2.4 (cum. $61)

Jason reminds us, with sound reasoning, not to cry for Garrett Hedlund despite another massive flop (Pan) on his hands.

BOX OFFICE LIMITED (excluding prev. wide)
(Oct 9th-11th)
01 Ladrones (375 screens) $1.3 NEW 
02 He Named Me Malala (689 screens) $.6 (cum. $.7) 
03 99 Homes (689 screens) $.6 (cum. $.8)  The return of Andrew Garfield  Review
04 Steve Jobs (4 screens) $.5 NEW Review
05 Goodbye Mr Loser (51 screens) $.3 NEW  
06 Grandma (205 screens) $.2 (cum. $6.2)  Poster Blurb, Lily Tomlin's Filmography, Review 
07 Goodnight Mommy (86 screens) $.1 (cum. $.6)  Interview, Oscar Submission
08 Freeheld (51 screens) $.1 (cum. $.1)
09 Learning to Drive (71 screens) $.06 (cum. $3.2)
10 Labyrinth of Lies (16 screens) $.05 (cum. $.09) Interview, Review, Beauty Break

Meanwhile in select cities, business was solid for the heavily promoted human rights documentary He Named Me Malala and crazy robust for the Oscar Best Picture hopeful Steve Jobs which racked up some of the highest per screen averages ever in extremely limited release. The Michael Fassbender led drama goes wide next week.

Sadly, there continued to be a lack of interest in Julianne Moore & Ellen Page's lesbian drama Freeheld. It's grossed a tiny $140,00ish to date, despite four very well liked actors (Michael Shannon & Steve Carell are in the supporting roles). In truth the buzz hasn't been good on it (apart from a few vocal supporters) but still... I feel the guilt about not having seen it yet. In my defense, I have been totally sick as previously documented, so what little leave the house energy I've had has gone to the NYFF.   

What did you see this weekend? Was it money well spent?