The Martian, from Fox, reclaimed the top position in its fourth weekend, narrowly beating Goosebumps with $15.9 million from 3,504 theaters for a domestic total of $166.4 million. In accordance to THR, the 3D space movie, additionally starring Kate Mara, Jessica Chastain, & Chiwetel Ejiofor, climbed to a domestic total of $166.four million. In its second week in wide release, Jack Black’s horror-comedy made $15.5 million, and R.L. Stine made lots of delightful dad jokes on Twitter, as he is wont to do. Another returning movie, “Goosebumps”, generated $15.5 million. So, what happened? Maybe it was Jobs over-saturation and subject matter that missed its zeitgeist moment, maybe it was the lack of leading starpower in Fassbender, or maybe it was just a crowded weekend with other adult-minded fare like Bridge of Spies and The Martian.
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The film was placed among five “most disappointing” films. Perhaps Steve Jobs was indeed too weighed down by non-stop Aaron Sorkin dialogue and an unlikable tech genius, even if that didn’t stop The Social Network years ago. Sadly he is not commercially popular to have guaranteed a win at the box office.
Those backing Steve Jobs had wanted to land somewhere in the teens, but are counting on a long run throughout awards season (an A- CinemaScore should help word of mouth). Vin Diesel’s The Last Witch Hunter, about a conservative witch holding tightly to his second amendment rights, debuted at No. 4, pulling in $10.8 million on a $75-$80 million budget.
The low-budget Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension didn’t do very well either, with a franchise-low take of US$8.2 million from 1,656 screens – over 1,000 fewer than other films in the series. It only earned US$8.1 million in its debut weekend, a lackluster opening. That dubious honor had been held by the Zac Efrom EDM drama We Are Your Friends back in August. Viacom’s Paramount Pictures” “Paranormal Activity’, that attracted vast appreciation during its previous versions could not match viewer’s expectations and earned only $8.2 million.
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The low screen count -and resulting box office- is the result of many theater owners boycotting the film due to Paramount’s controversial deal which will send the movie to Video On Demand as soon as its theater count dips below 300 theaters. The news wasn’t much better for the fifth film to go into wide release this weekend, Universal’s Steve Jobs. What do you want to see?
