The two big new releases, Scarlett Johansson's Lucy and Dwayne Johnson's Hercules are both hits this weekend. This is also yet another example of why the obsession over rank is foolhardy. Yes, Universal's (Comcast Corporation) sci-fi actioner will easily top the box office this weekend, but Paramount (Viacom, Inc.) and MGM's fantasy actioner is doing much better than I expected.
First off, Universal's Lucy, which cost EuropaCorp around $40 million to produce, debuted with a whopping $17.1 million last night, including $2.75m worth of Thursday previews. The film is just under the $18m opening Friday for Angelina Jolie's Wanted. That Universal comic book adaptation debuted in 2008 with $50m, still one of the rare R-rated films to debut at said high-water mark. It pulled a 2.7x weekend multiplier, which would give Lucy $46m for the weekend. Now movies are a little bit more front loaded then they were even just six years ago, so a 'mere' 2.5x multiplier and a $42.75m debut wouldn't surprise me either. Either way, this is a huge win for Scarlett Johansson.
Coming off her Black Widow roles in the Marvel universe and her acclaimed art house triumph in Under the Skin. This should be her first $100m domestic hit outside of the Marvel universe and will trounce her biggest non-Marvel opening ( He's Just Not That Into You with a $27m debut and $93m final gross). The film's marketing highlights a wholly different movie, selling a sci-fi heavy character drama about a young woman unwillingly given a drug that basically unlocks her brain and transforms her into a higher form of human as a 'Watch Scarlett Johansson use super powers to kick righteous butt!' action picture. What action the film contains is mostly revealed in the trailer, so the fact that the film received a C+ from Cinemascore is actually surprising to me. Considering how different the movie is from the marketing, I was half-expecting an F.
Universal's campaign for Lucy, full of lies as it may be, is an undisputed triumph. This will easily be Luc Besson's biggest directorial box office hit, as it will pass the $63 million domestic gross of The Fifth Element by the middle of next weekend and should play like gangbusters overseas ( The Fifth Element's $263m worldwide gross shouldn't be a problem). Among films that the prolific French genre filmmaker has produced, the goalpost is the $145m domestic gross of Taken and the $363m global gross of Taken 2, but of which are possible without being explicitly plausible. But pretty much any film Besson produced or directed aside from the Taken series is going to be left in the dust. I'll say this again and again, but the story of the summer box office should darn-well be the breakout success of female-skewing genre properties. I don't know if the blatantly misleading marketing will hurt the film over the long run, but it certainly got audiences into the theater this weekend.
Barring uncommon front loading, Hercules will not be the summer's first box office flop. I'm happy to be wrong, as the summer's 'no mega-flops' streak continues into August. Despite terrible buzz, some misleading and relatively uninspiring marketing, and the film itself mostly being hidden from domestic press until the last minute, Brett Ratner's Hercules scored a solid $11 million last night, including $2.1m worth of Thursday previews. The Dwayne Johnson fantasy action-adventure film should close out the weekend over/under $30m. Yes, that's about where Tom Cruise's Edge of Tomorrow ended up on its debut weekend, but that film cost $175m while Hercules cost $110m to produce. Budgets matter, folks. It's why 300: Rise of an Empire (budgeted at $110m) is a big hit at $330m worldwide while Edge of Tomorrow is struggling at $360m worldwide.
This is easily Dwayne Johnson's biggest 'all by myself' debut weekend since his breakout in The Scorpion King ($36m) back in 2002, which had the bonus of being a Mummy Returns spin-off. Considering how uninspiring the film looked, again the film's marketing campaign sold something the movie wasn't, this is a case where star+concept (See The Rock as Hercules!) was enough to overcome the utter lack of anything else to entice moviegoers. The irony is that the picture was much better than anyone expected. As such, we're seeing tons of 'It's actually pretty darn good!' reviews dropping over the weekend and it stands to reason that audiences will be surprised too. Point being, this one may just hang in there past opening weekend. The one-two-three punch of Guardians of the Galaxy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Expendables 3 is going to hurt, but Hercules stands a solid chance of being the second-choice consensus pick over the next month.
It's an old-school popcorn entertainment that should get positive word-of-mouth from Dwayne Johnson fans and action junkies. I still think Paramount made a mistake in hiding the film from critics, especially as said decision was arguably more about hiding their false advertising (the film isn't remotely about Hercules fighting supernatural monsters while avenging his murdered family) than the film's quality. But the film didn't go down in flames as some expected and may well be a big hit depending on how well it plays overseas (I can't imagine the 3D IMAX film won't be big overseas). Again, this is just one day's gross we're talking about here, but perception matters right from the get-go. Dwayne Johnson's Hercules is no flop and I'm happy to be wrong on this one. It's also a pretty good movie, and I'm even happier to be wrong on that score.
The other wide release, from Clarius Entertainment, is the Rob Reiner-directed comedy So It Goes. The Michael Douglas/Diane Keaton picture was obviously intended to be counter-programming for older audiences, but audience awareness was almost non-existent. So cue a rather terrible $1.3 million Friday gross on 1,762 screens for an over/under $4m gross for the weekend. Blame the light marketing, which didn't really sell the premise (Douglas being forced to care for a granddaughter and roping Keaton into the mix) and just-plain didn't make its existence known. There really is a marketing difference when you compare smaller distributors to the major studios. But heck, even CBS Films was able to get Last Vegas to a $16m opening weekend last November and to a whopping $63m domestic gross.
Open Road Film's The Fluffy Movie (a stand-up concert film featuring Gabriel Iglesias) debuted with $0.513 million on 432 screens. Alas... A Most Wanted Man received a surprisingly wide release, as the Roadside Attractions spy thriller earned around $700k on 361 theaters. Obviously the hook is that it's the last starring role for the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight (starring Colin Firth and Emma Stone as his daughter... er, I mean love interest*) opened on 17 screens from Sony Pictures Classics and is set to rack up around $385,000 for the weekend after earning around $115k yesterday.
In holdover news, IFC expanded Boyhood to 107 theaters this weekend and earned around $430k yesterday for a probable $1.5m weekend. 20th Century Fox's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes earned $4.7 million on its third Friday, for a $160.4m domestic cume. Expect a $16m third weekend (-55%) and a new cume of $173m after 17 days (the first film made $176m total). Despite being a superior picture to The Purge, The Purge: Anarchy still tumbled a brutal 75% on its second Friday, earning $3.4 million and bringing its cume to $44.8m. Still, the $9m picture should have around $10m for the weekend and a new 10-day total of around $51m by tomorrow.
Planes: Fire and Rescue also dropped like a rock, earning $2.76m on its second Friday as well, down 51% from last Friday which isn't good for an animated film. Expect a second weekend of around $9m and a new total of around $35m by tomorrow. Perhaps Planes: The Way of All Flesh will go direct-to-DVD after all, depending on overseas numbers. Even Sex Tape couldn't hold out, as the Cameron Diaz/Jason Segel comedy earned $1.9m on its second Friday and will end its second weekend with $5.7m, a horrible 60% drop and a $26m ten-day cume for the $40m Sony comedy.
Transformers: Age of Extinction should earn around $5m for its fifth weekend and bring its domestic cume to $236m, ahead of X-Men: Days of Future Past and Maleficent to become the summer's top domestic grosser as it barrels towards $1 billion worldwide. Tammy has now crossed $75 million domestic despite a 51% drop ($1m) from last Friday and should end the weekend at around $78m, while Jersey Boys has $45m and Edge of Tomorrow has $97m as of today. And 22 Jump Street refuses to die, sticking around for another estimated $3.3m weekend (-45%) after grossing $1m today and a likely $185m domestic cume by tomorrow for the $50m sequel.
That's it for today. Join me tomorrow for the weekend estimates and more holdover news. Something to watch for: Godzilla is opening in Japan this weekend so we'll see if it can get that $9 million it needs to crawl over the $500m mark. Of course, with $199.3m domestic, it may well cross $200m domestic and $500m worldwide on the same day. Of course, if it can wait until after the weekend, I'd really appreciate it as I have other things to write about first.
*53 year old Colin Firth plays the male romantic lead while 54-year old old Marcia Gay Harden plays the mother of Firth's love interest, the 25-year old Emma Stone. And no, that's not just an issue with Woody Allen films. Just ask Kristen Scott Thomas.
Post By http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/07/26/friday-box-office-scarlett-johanssons-lucy-grosses-17m-the-rocks-hercules-nets-11m/
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