Sony has a huge hit on their hands: Hotel Transylvania 2 has not only opened at No. 1, it’s earned the biggest opening in the history of September, scoring $47.5 million in North America alone.
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After leaving “SNL” in the mid-’90s, Sandler, as you know, soon translated his brand of humor and sweet-shlub/angry-doofus shtick to more than a decade of box-office gold, re-teaming time and again with such directors as Dennis Dugan (“Happy Gilmore”) and Frank Coraci (“The Wedding Singer”) and Peter Segal (“50 First Dates”) and Steven Brill (“Mr. Deeds”). Even though foreign grosses have helped it out signficantly, Pixels was a bomb domestically and it’s just the latest in a string of failures. Critics were less warm, as the film scored just a 46% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Other movies which hit the box office this weekend were “The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials” with $14 million.
The Intern, starring Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro, opened in the #2 slot with $18.2-M from 3,305 theaters. It is Pixar’s third highest-grossing film ever behind just Toy Story 3 and Finding Nemo. The film will be showing at Horrorthon in Dublin at the end of October 2015. Besides the narrative and the plot, it was the motifs and symbols as well as the costumes that attracted audiences to watch these films. That figure is something of a disappointment given the A CinemaScore the film earned in limited release and the solid $7.2 million it generated in its inaugural weekend. It collected $29.2 million from more than 6,500 screens across 42 markets. Both “Black Mass,” in fifth place with $11.5 million, and “Everest” have been pulling in predominantly male audiences.
Down three spots to #6 in its third week was M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit.
It also sets a new September record, passing the previous “Hotel Transylvania’s” $42.5 million start in 2012. Seventh place belonged to the dramatic thriller The flawless Guy which brought in another $4.75M this weekend, bringing its total to $49M.
Tony Toscano reviews two movies coming out this weekend. It will likely finish off with about $63 million stateside. So far, it’s not looking good, as the first movie he’s been making as a part of the deal, called Ridiculous Six is already creating controversy for being racially insensitive to Native Americans.
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Eli Roth’s cannibal flick The Green Inferno was also finally released – after sitting on the shelf in legal limbo for a year – in only half the theaters with minimal, targeted advertising. Consensus prior to opening was that the sequel would open lower than the original, not higher. I was also pleasantly surprised to see SICARIO sneak into the top ten despite being on less than 60 screens. “We expect this to have long play and a big multiple for weeks to come”. Everest’s 10-day domestic total is now at an estimated $23.1 million. The budget was $30 million.
