The holiday falls on a Saturday, the busiest day for moviegoing, so studios were hoping to steer clear of what is shaping up to be a dead period by pushing lots of new content into this weekend.
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The strategy didn’t work. Despite their giant studious backing them “The Last Witch Hunter”, “Rock The Kasbah” and “Jem and the Holograms” had dismal openings across the country.
Ultimately the buzz didn’t translate into box office, and making it unlikely that “Steve Jobs” will earn back its $30 million budget and millions more in marketing costs. Vin Diesel‘s The Last Witch Hunter, which reportedly cost $70 million to make, only brought in $10.8 million for fourth place. Analyst had it pegged to make $17 million, which still feels a little low.
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension pulled a franchise-worst performance, only earning $8.2 million to place sixth. The film impressed only 8 percent of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes and received a B-minus from CinemaScore.
“We’re accepting the fact on this movie that the box office will be affected”, said Rob Moore, Paramount’s vice chairman, adding that its long-term benefits include potentially higher digital sales and the ability to toy with a distribution schedule “currently dictated by exhibition”. Despite opening wide this weekend, Steve Jobs rose only four spots to No. 7 with $7.2 million. Through Sunday, Steve Jobs’ domestic total is $10 million.
Year-end awards, box office legs, positive word-of-mouth.
Failing to crack the top 10 were Bill Murray’s latest, Rock the Kasbah, and the highly-anticipated Jem and the Holograms adaptation. And it was projected to be the No. 1 film this weekend when it expanded to 2,493 theaters in North America.
Bill Murray’s “Rock the Kasbah” barely did better, pulling in only $1.5 million. That would have been a record low for a movie opening this year in wide release-had Universal’s “Jem and the Holograms” not also opened this weekend. The reboot of the 1980s children’s show grossed only $1.3 million in 15th place. Reviews were downright bad for both films. Last weekend the stranded-on-Mars-sci-fi slid to second in favor of Sony’s Goosebumps, but as the Jack Black-led children’s horror dips into second with a solid hold and an estimated $15.5 million, Scott’s Martian is number one for the third time in four weekends in release.
The domestic total for the outer space blockbuster has reached $166.4 million and is on target to reach $200 million stateside. The film will get a one-week run in 3D IMAX starting next Friday. The result was slightly more than half of my $20 million prediction.
The Cold War drama Bridge Of Spies made $11.4 million and is performing strongly especially with older movie goers, and has a total gross to date of $32.6 million. DreamWorks, Participant Media and Disney (NYSE:DIS) partnered on the $40-M historical drama, which fell just 26%.
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“Hotel Transylvania 2” completes the Top 5 with a fifth-place, $9.0 million weekend.
