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SATURDAY PM: Sources are giving me these early North American grosses for Friday and Saturday and weekend and cume. Numbers which will be refined tonight and/or in the morning. Analysis coming:
1. Saw VII 3D (Lionsgate) NEW [2,808 Theaters]
Friday $10.7M, Saturday $7.9M, Weekend $24.2M)
A scary Halloween to one and all. You know what frightens me? More Saw pics. This is supposed to be the final chapter of the franchise that has made $763 million in global box office and $1+ billion in DVD sales. Just as the previous installment was supposed to be the last gasp. And so on. Granted 7 films in 7 years is unprecedented for a franchise, and the Guinness Book Of World Records presented a plaque at Comic-Connaming it the most successful horror series in history. But, please, let it die. This torture porn disgrace needs to end. Friday’s anemic number includes $1.7 million from Saw 3D‘s midnight screenings, which were Lionsgate’s largest even though unimpressive. At first the opening weekend take was pegged at $28M. But when the drop from Friday to Saturday was -25%, the opening weekend figure fell to $24.2M. That’s underwhelming because of 3D’s higher ticket prices (3D screens represented 93% of the total gross). The predicted total puts it only 5th among the seven 2D installments.
I heard that Saw 3D was tracking solidly, especially in the important categories: young male/young female and Hispanics, while gaining traction in the African-American market. Produced in association with Twisted Pictures for a budget of under $20 million, Hollywood thought the pic could earn mid-$30sM even if Lionsgate tried to laughingly lower expectations to high teens. The filmmakers boasted their use of the SI-3D digital camera system, allowing the fast shooting/up-close style that is a Saw hallmark. On Thursday, the studio hosted a nationwide fan appreciation night offering a “Limited Edition” pair of 3D glasses that said “I Saw It First” for ticket buyers.
2. Paranormal Activity 2 (Paramount) Week 2 [3,239 Theaters]
Friday $5.8M, Saturday $7M, Weekend $17M (-58%), Cume $66.5M
Not a bad hold, considering this is a 2D pic. Also remember that Paranormal Activity 2‘s Friday figure from a week ago included over $6M midnight shows, ergo the steep drop.
3. Red (Summit) Week 3 [3,349 Theaters]
Friday $3.4M, Saturday $4.8M, Weekend $10.7M (-29%), Cume $58.8M
4. Jackass 3D (Paramount) Week 3 [3,139 Theaters]
Friday $3.1M, Saturday $3.4M, Weekend $8.5M, Cume $101.7M
5. Hereafter (Warner Bros) Week 3 [2,424 Theaters]
Friday $2M, Saturday $2.8M, Weekend $6.4M (-47%), Cume $22.2M
6. Secretariat (Disney) Week 4 [3,108 Theaters]
Friday $1.5M, Saturday $2.2M, Weekend $5M, Cume $44.7M
7. The Social Network (Sony) Week 5 [2,767 Theaters]
Friday $1.5M, Saturday $2M, Weekend $4.7M, Cume $79.7M
8. Life As We Know It (Warner Bros) Week 4 [2,860 Theaters]
Friday $1.4M, Saturday $1.7M, Weekend $4.2M, Cume $43.7M
9. The Town (Warner Bros) Week 7 [1,608 Theaters]
Friday $620K, Saturday $900K, Weekend $2M, Cume $87.6M
10. Conviction (Fox Searchlight) Week 3 [565 Theaters]
Friday $550K, Saturday $875K, Weekend $1.9M, Cume $2.5M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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‘Red’ in Week 4 beats ‘Hereafter’ (week 2 wide) and ‘Jackass 3D’ (week 3)? I guess that just shows how starved older viewers are for entertainment.
“just shows how starved older viewers are for entertainment.”
gee, i wonder where you got that phrase from? oh wait. here’s nikki from last week’s box office post.
“Excellent hold for Red, showing that the +35-aged crowd is starving for adult fare at the box office.”
plagiarist.
…Or, it’s just much better than Hereafter and Jackass.
Dude, Red came out the same week as Jackass. Three weeks ago. And it’s not surprising it passed Jackass on week three since the Jackass films have always been front loaded. It is doing well, but keep the facts straight. Oh, and it was also ahead of Hereafter on Hereafter first week wide. Says more about Hereafter’s BO than it does about Red.
Citing “Red” over “Hereafter” makes no sense at all — who do you think “Hereafter’s” target audience was, tweens? Sure “Red’s” cast was older, it was still an action movie where lots of things go ka-boom. I guarantee you “Hereafter’s” audience was older than “Red’s.”
what do you mean underwhelming,the highest predition was 25 million so this actally pretty good
Yeah, Nikki come on. I know you hate Saw, but tell it how it is– the movie is going to make a ton of money if it was really made for under $20million.
Don’t be a hater.
This is the reason so many in Hollywood love this site. Saw which makes money is trashed. While Lena Dunham gets lauded for transforming a crappy festival film no one will see into an HBO show that no one will watch and a movie deal for the female Greenberg. The only people who will make any money on that deal is UTA who convinced their friends at the studios to flush stockholder’s money down the toilet. I’ve said it many times, there’s a reason 70% of Hollywood films lose money. These people hate their audiences and have nothing but contempt for stockholders.
And I’m not defending Saw, either. I’ve never seen any of those films. But at least the film has fans outside of the agencies. Unlike Noah Baumbach and the Duplass Brothers.
“Saw 7 Underperforms”…it’ll be “Paranormal Activity 7 Underpeforms” in a few years. Anybody know how much Saw 7 cost? They’re usually dirt-cheap but the 3D must have made a difference. Should still make a profit though.
did you even read the post? it mentions the budget in it, dummy.
When I posted this it only had the figures & very little text (note the time & date of my post). The budget wasn’t mentioned then. Happy now?
Great comment! We all know what is coming. The Paranormal Activity franchise is taking over from the Saw franchise. And in 5 years we will have Paranormal Activity 7…hahaha.
But why won’t studios keep making these low budget movies when they are so profitable?
The original Saw cost $1.2 million and made over $100 million worldwide (and the newest one cost “under $20 million” according to Nikki and will probably gross around $100 million worldwide).
The first Paranormal Activity cost less than a million and made almost $200 million worldwide and the second film cost $3 million and will most likely make over $150 million worldwide.
So if the people keep showing up, of course the studios are going to keep releasing them. That’s all that matters…Making money.
It’s up 50% from last year and was tracking in the low to mid 20s, I think you mean OVER performing. But you couldn’t say that about the seventh film of the king of torture porn films, could you? No, certainly not.
Saw will gross 22m for the weekend if that friday number is accurate.
Halloween is on sunday so the sunday gross should be higher than usual John
no it won’t.
$22 million is a little low. Many people will go see it tonight and tomorrow because of Halloween. But yes, $28 million seems a little too high. Maybe around $25-$26 million.
Thank you john–Who in their right minds would give a franchise on its last sawed-off limb a 2.5 multiplier,?! Particularly in light that Halloween is notorious for depressing movie going that day (Sunday). You can’t just regurgitate studio numbers, you have to smell the aromas of the what they’re cooking first…
Saw 3D was made for $17M and is in nearly 300 less theaters than usual, and will make more in three days than last years entire haul, but it underperformed? Wow. Your biased snarkiness towards this franchise (and horror in general) is painfully obvious.
It cheers me to see Red doing well, it’s a fun movie, with some nice tongue cheek performances, it’s nicely paced and hard to complain about having to watch such a high class cast for 2 hours. And it has some legs, this could definitely be a new franchise.
So I guess Damon and Eastwood won’t be doing a slow build as so many predicted last week. $21 million total on a $40 million budget. Can we officially call Hereafter a flop now?
If that will make you feel good about yourself, go ahead.
Couldn’t you have at least come up with an interesting reply if you took the time to reply? Apparently you weren’t here last week when we had a rather extensive debate about Matt Damon and George Clooney.
“Just as the previous installment was supposed to be the last gasp. And so on.”
I can`t remember that the producers EVER said anything like that. The next installment was always announced right about the time SAW XX hit theaters.
Nikki, your own news/opinion poll asks how much business will the new Saw do this weekend and caps out at $25m and yet your headline reports a “so so” $28m. So much for objectivity I guess.
Yeah, I think even high estimates had saw at 25 million. This is certainly better than they expected. Also, Saw 6 was never claimed to be the last Saw movie, nor, if you watch it, was it intended to be. Did Nikki really write this?
I thought you all outgrew saw.
I think it’s relatively unfair to slap the “torture porn” banner onto Saw, when the emphasis in these films is on narrative – rather than, say, Hostel or The Strangers, or The Hills Have Eyes, where the emphasis is very firmly on torturing people without a strong narrative to support the action.
And I’m pretty sure no one involved in Saw VI *ever* claimed it was going to be the last one. When they shot it, they assumed they would go up to VIII, but the poor box office of VI made them truncate the end of the story to just the one final movie.
Seriously????
Funniest comment of the day!
Seriously. Saw VI ends on a cliffhanger and was never couched as the conclusion of the series, and the series itself is not torture porn as rather than being tied up with the horror in the gruesome the story is about the choices people make between selflessness and selfishness.
Mikey: your comment is not the funniest of the day, it’s the most pathetic and ill-informed.
Seems like a pretty good result for Saw 7. Other studios wish they had that kind of franchise return.
Oh lookie!
Yet another annual SAW movie. Let me guess; more people die?!?
Oops, sorry! Did I just inadvertently give away the entire plot?
No one can say Saw 7 overperformed if it’s only estimated to make 28 million for the weekend.If it wasn’t for the higher 3D prices it would probably be doing worst than the last Saw.
Thursday’s midnight figures being strong do not somehow justify Paranormal’s 68% drop. Those gotta-see-it-first customers would have been there on Friday night anyway if the midnights weren’t scheduled. The weekend gross would have been the same and the film would still be down 68%, which is one of the biggest 2nd week drops of 2010.
LMAO at rolling eyes.
Your logic is moronic and of course it didn’t drop 68¤ for the WHOLE weekend, only for the friday. It actually dropped only 50% or so on sat/sun for an average of about 59%. Get it? So no, nowhere near the highest drops of 2010.
Here we go again. Nikki attacking horror films. She probably hasn’t even seen a Saw film, yet she stands on her soapbox and bashes them with all her might. Meanwhile, the fans have fun and Lionsgate makes a mint. Saw 3D was fun, but I do miss Jigsaw. His short appearances in the film were a reminder of how great Tobin Bell is in the role.
And yes, 28m would be above any predictions I have seen…including Nikki’s. Quite the underperformance, eh Nikki?
I recently screened the entire SAW series just to try and understand its success. What I discovered was an intricately plotted series full of clever bursts of writing and the kind of ticking clock suspense most so-called thrillers fail to achieve. I think it’s time to stop dismissing these films as “torture porn” – and condescending to their fans – and acknowledge the strengths of this series. It didn’t make a nearly a billion dollars worldwide because it wasn’t working.
$28M (and $11M on a Friday) opening for the seventh movie in seven years is not so-so nor a disappointment. I hate torture porn, too, but while the law of diminishing returns applies here, it’s still a very decent number (especially when you factor in that it’s against the newer, more fresh Paranormal Activity film). Torture porn is like reality TV; love it or hate it, it not only has an audience, but it”s here to stay.
Saw 3D was laughable. David Hackl dodged a bullet with all the drama surrounding the hopscotch game of directors. Inept writing followed by generic directing. Greuters will be locked editing till his career sputters out.
Twisted made their money. Time to get out & buy another sports team. Oh, wait…
“Underperformed”? What are you talking about? Nobody thought it would do this well and it doubled it’s take from last years opening. Mark and Oren are assholes and torture porn isn’t my bag, but get it right Nikki. 28m for #7? Damn Good.
“Mark and Oren are assholes…”
Where is THIS bit of vitriol coming from? Jeez.
You know what frightens me? Is people who take statistics on the ethnicity of the people going to see movies. Fuck you
What are you talking about man? You do realize that’s all a part of research right?
I can think of a lot of movies that would have been pretty happy to hit Saw 3D’s “so-so” numbers
Sunday is Halloween, so $22mil is low and $28 is more accurate. Also, Herafter is also adult orientated face, so why would Red beating it mean adults are starved…. Red beat wide week 1.