Jack Black’s Goosebumps has taken $23.5m in its opening weekend to go straight to the top of the U.S. box office. It beat new releases including “Bridge of Spies”, Steven Spielberg’s first film in three years. To that end, Beasts did best at the Landmark theater in Los Angeles, a favorite haunt of awards voters.
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“Goosebumps” takes its names from the spooky children’s books by R.L. Stine, but provided a meta-twist by having the author play a role in the movie.
“Goosebumps performed well, and has a natural marketplace with families who don’t have many other options this time of year”, said Phil Contrino, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. Both films benefitted from a dearth of family-friendly films in the marketplace, with young moviegoers making up a large chunk of audiences.
“Bridge of Spies”, DreamWorks and Disney’s Cold War drama starring Tom Hanks, pulled in $5.3 million from 2,811 locations on Friday, which suggests an opening weekend total around $16 million.
In the movie, teenager Zach Cooper, played by Dylan Minnette, moves to a small town from the city and meets Hannah (Odeya Rush). After Stine’s creations are unintentionally released from their manuscripts, the two teens and the author/dad must get them back into the books to save the town. Heading into the weekend, the major tracking services predicted that Goosebumps would open to $20 million-$24 million.
Of the new nationwide offerings, del Toro’s R-rated Crimson Peak was the big disappointment in grossing $12.9 million from 2,984 theaters to place No. 4. Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska star in the gothic romance/horror hybrid, which Variety’s review deemed “too frou-frou for genre fans, too gory for the Harlequin crowd and all-around too obvious”.
The $55 million movie is the latest movie produced by Legendary to have problems. That led to being tasked with helping negotiate the release of Francis Gary Powers, whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960.
Reviews have been fairly strong, with critics giving it an 92% positive rating score on Rotten Tomatoes and A CinemaScore.
Spielberg, who directed “Jaws”, and “E.T.”, is working on several future projects.
When it came to this weekend’s box office, it would have been wise to bet on black. He’s producing a “Jurassic World” sequel and has suggested another “Indiana Jones” sequel might emerge.
Director Ridley Scott’s “The Martian”, which cost $108 million to make, fell 42% and added $21.5 million to its domestic haul.
“This is a movie that will have a very long life in theaters”.
It follows a boy (played by 15-year-old Abraham Attah) after he joins an army of young soldiers under a commandant (played by Idris Elba).
Hotel Transylvania 2 rounded out the top five, earning $12.5 million in its fourth weekend.
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Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. This weekend will pose a key test for Danny Boyle’s film in terms of how much the subject matter appeals outside of New York and Los Angeles, where Steve Jobs scored one of the highest opening location averages of all time last weekend.
