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SATURDAY PM UPDATE: Sources have given me North American grosses for Friday, Saturday, weekend, and cumes:
1. The Social Network (Sony) NEW [2,771 Theaters]
Friday $8M, Saturday $8.9M, Weekend $23M
The stories behind Microsoft and Apple only rated TV movies. But The Social Network received the full big screen PG-13 treatment as the first major pedigreed project about the Internet that wasn’t just another crime thriller. It’s that rarity in Hollywood: a younger movie with adult dialogue but not without an element of risk because it’s a drama. “Big kudos to Amy Pascal because it was not an obvious movie to make,” one Hollywood influencer reminded me. That’s why media coverage of this much-buzzed-about Facebook origins pic has been so breathless about every nuance of the marketing campaign: from the launch of the initial teaser spots to the brilliant one-sheet to the enigmatic trailer and “punk, genius, billionaire” outdoor ads.
It’s never been in doubt that this movie would be a success for Sony since it claims to have kept its budget under $40M thanks to no stars and deferred compensations for the filmmakers. But was it over-hyped? “No matter where we open, I think we will play for a long time with excellent word of mouth,” a Sony exec boasted to me. “For a film skewed towards adults this time of year, $20M is our bar and would be a fantastic start.” But Hollywood expected $25M and the pic slightly underperformed – $8M Friday (including $350K in post-midnight showings), up +11% for $8.9M Saturday, and with an estimated $6.1M that’s $23M this weekend. Still, I’m surprised box office wasn’t even better despite its middling release — like $30+M given its obvious Facebook/My Space/Twitter effect. Too bad those Harvard pretenders in the pic didn’t have more sex or dress better. And they’re brooders without even being vampires. And Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is no super-hero. But, seriously, the reason may well lie in the film’s elitism which could be keeping more mainstream audiences away. “Left coast, right coast, and a smidge of Chicago only. The rest of the country could care less,” a rival studio exec pointed out the pic’s attendance patterns to me late Friday, adding Saturday. “It’s a big city pic only.”
The Social Network isn’t just a figment of hype; it logged a “B+” Cinemascore and very positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Exit surveys showed the opening weekend audience was 53% female and 55% were ages 25 and older. Based on the book Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, the film ironically wasn’t made by a new filmmaking generation but by the same old showbiz veterans: scripted by Aaron Sorkin (who made $3 million for the writing assignment) and directed by David Fincher (who I’m told took no money upfront at first) and produced by Scott Rudin (who also deferred everything but his producing fee) and Mike De Luca, Dana Brunetti, and Cean Chaffin.
Since its Labor Day screenings for the Hollywood influencers began, it’s been touted for a Best Picture Oscar — although I worry it’s peaking too early because of its early October release date. But from a box office standpoint, that’s the same weekend Social Network star Jesse Eisenberg’s Zombieland debuted last year to #1 with $24.7M for Sony. With 2 big movies opening around $24M each to his credit, Jesse is a new and unlikely star. Justin Timberlake again demonstrates he can act. And even the pic’s unknown stars are reaping its rewards: Sony recently cast Andrew Garfield as its rebooted Spider-Man, and chose Rooney Mara for the Hollywood version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo which, not surprisingly, Fincher is directing and Rudin producing.
The Social Network‘s tracking was unexpected. At first, its awareness was highest among adults. (“Old people thought it looked cool,” laughed one insider.) Then across-the-board strength built among ages 17-34 and teens both male and female. That’s because the Internet outreach campaign for younger people didn’t kick in until 2 weeks ago while campaigns for older people have to be laid in much longer in advance. Sorkin took the movie on a college tour for Sony as part of an extensive word-of-mouth screening campign. And the studio even ran a sweepstakes online where, if you had more than 500 friends on any social network site, you could enter to win a random drawing to host a screening of the film in every state for 50 friends. “The buzz has been building, and I have never seen a crescendo that is so unanimously strong,” a Sony exec gushed to me. The Social Network Original Score Album by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross even rocked the music charts as the top seller on Amazon’s MP3 Store.
2. Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls (Warner Bros) Week 2 [3,575 Theaters]
Friday $2.6M, Saturday $5M, Weekend $11M (-32%), Cume $30.1M
What a surprise #2 thanks to a big +90% Saturday kiddie matinee bounce. Though its opening weekend numbers didn’t heat up audiences, but it’s holding well.
2. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Fox) [3,597 Theaters]
Friday $3.2M, Saturday $4.3M, Weekend $10.1M (-47%), Cume $35.8M
A decent hold from what was a decent opening a week ago. Fox still thinks it skated, and I agree.
3. The Town (Warner Bros) Week 3 [2,935 Theaters]
Friday $3.1M, Saturday $4.2M, Weekend $9.9M, Estimated Cume $64.2M
A very strong -36% hold going into its 3rd week in release bodes well for Ben Affleck’s future as a director. And Warner Bros just offered him Superman to helm on Chris Nolan’s suggestion. (But Affleck likely will turn it down.)
5. Easy A (Screen Gems/Sony) Week 3 [2,974 Theaters]
Friday $2.2M, Saturday $3M, Weekend $6.8M, Cume $42.2M
This cheap teen pic keeps holding around -36% which should mean a $55M-$60M domestic result.
6. You Again (Disney) Week 3 [2,548 Theaters]
Friday $1.7M, Saturday $2.5M, Weekend $5.5M, Estimated Cume $16.4M
7. Case 39 (Paramount) NEW [2,211 Theaters]
Friday $1.8M, Saturday $2.1M, Weekend $5.1M
This horror holdover from Paramount Vantage looks to have had a bite taken out of its female-driven horror audience by Let Me In despite logging a “B-” Cinemascore. Talk about a bizarre release pattern: Case 39 starring Renee Zellweger (remember back when she was a star?) with a bit part by Bradley Cooper (before he made The Hangover) was made back in 2006 when Brad Weston was president of production for Paramount. (That was two execs ago…) It had a moderate budget of $27 million. The studio opened the pic internationally and it did $17M overseas. Because it did reasonably well in Mexico and Spain, Paramount decided to release it now in the United States with a very targeted marketing campaign focusing on Hispanic audiences. But it looks like it will underperform even modest studio expectations of $6M-$8M.
8. Let Me In (Relativity/Overture] NEW [2,020 Theaters]
Friday $1.9M, Saturday $2M, Weekend $5M
This unnecessary vampire remake, based on the Swedish horror pic Let the Right One In, logged only a “C+” Cinemascore. That’s quite an inauspicious start for Overture’s first outing since the distribution operation was taken over by Relativity. But only publicity hound Ryan Kavanaugh would do a victory lap in the naive mainstream media this week before he knew how Let Me In would perform at the box office so as to avoid the tough questions afterwards. And judging from Friday’s weak number and even weaker weekend estimate, despite the presence of Kick-Ass star Chloe Moretz, this is yet another stand-alone Relativity disaster area. Especially because film financing circles tell me the company will lose most of the P&A investment on the film.
9. Devil (Universal) Week 3 [,392 Theaters]
Friday $1.1M, Saturday $1.6M, Weekend $3.6M, Cume $27.3M
10. Alpha & Omega 3D (Week 3) [2,303 Theaters]
Friday $620K,Saturday $1.4M, Weekend $2.9M, Estimated Cume $18.9M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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I’d bet that 90 percent of general audiences have no idea LET ME IN is a remake. And more obvious (and lousier) remakes like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET have done a lot better in their first weekends before falling off. If anything’s gonna send a message to Hollywood to stop with the remakes, it’s not gonna be this one; the only message here, sadly, is that mindless genre stuff like RESIDENT EVIL is a better bet than a smart horror film like LET ME IN.
Chris H. Thank you for pointing that out about “could care less.” Very annoying, commonly misspoken phrase.
I can’t wait to see Let Me In. Enjoyed the original very much and the reviews are extremely promising. Nikki often comes off as extremely judgmental and slanted in these articles…especially when it comes to the horror genre.
I was hugely disappointed in LET ME IN. Yes the movie was well shot but Matt Reeves just totally lost the poetic, poignant elements of the original and made a bleaker, more graphic, more obvious and less interesting “horror film” rendition of it. No wonder why audiences were left in the cold.
It’s funny but even though the film follows the original faithfully, it lost the nuances and touches that made it more than the shlock Reeves ended up producing here. How unfortunate.
Speaking of how amazing Sony is with their winning streak, how come THE VIRGINITY HIT has never been mentioned Nikki?
The Social Network numbers are very respectable. It is that exceedingly rare Hollywood film that is smart and entertaining– has artistic ambitions yet isn’t meant just for the art house. Will be a strong contender for the Oscar and will have major legs. It will certainly be profitable. More importantly, it shows what Hollywood, once in a while, can do. Hollywood has been turning out brain-dead comedies, dumb as shit horror and action films for so long that I think a whole generation of young filmgoers don’t understand movies can actually be more than that. And because the films are so patently idiotic we all wind up talking about the gross or the marketing strategy or the players involved because the movies themselves are so completely empty. Nice to see Hollywood make a real movie for a change.
It’s because everyone’s afraid for their jobs. Movies with no pre-awareness are very risky. There will always be a percentage of movies like Social Network, Inception and The Town, but the percentage will be very small. It’s called risk mitigation.
Until movies like this have more support, we will always get a lot of “brain-dead comedies” and “dumb as shit horror films”.
(You have no legs to stand on regarding action flicks, as this is America, and we’ve grown up on those. A hefty percentage of action movies will always be profitable and will never go away.)
TURK and TOO RISKY should be listened to. They identify a real chunk of the problem in film quality.
I would argue that another big problem is that the people making greenlight decisions often have no clue what constitutes effective screenwriting, regardless of genre or “pre-awareness”. Execs intuitively think they know what will be popular, but they haven’t done the years of work to know what’s actually going on dramatically in every beat of a script that makes it work or not.
That may sound overly pedantic and condescending, but any A-list writer who succeeds consistently knows what I’m saying. It’s not really the execs fault totally. They often progress professionally into a greenlight position not because they understand writing so much as they are adept at studio politics, which is in itself a massive challenge that many writers couldn’t handle.
It’s a bit of a conundrum that really self-defeats our industry. Quality almost always cuts through the noise and sells, and when execs have done their jobs with budget and cast in line with story there is profit. Just seems to happen way less than it should.
Kind of makes me long for the old studio system where moguls had oscar ambitions in addition to quarterly ones, and story departments were kick ass and demanding places where writers got schooled properly. Maybe that’s romanticizing, but I think the business has lost sight of just what it takes to consistently turn out a quality product that they consumer wants. Like the auto industry in the 1980′s. We have too many k-cars in our theaters at the moment.
Bit of an all over the place post. apologies.
“With 2 big movies opening around $24M each to his credit, Jesse is a new and unlikely star.”
Don’t fall into the same trap the studios do, Nikki. Both films were hits because of the concept behind them and would’ve succeeded with anyone else in the same role.
Jesse didn’t exactly open ‘Adventureland,’ did he?
Ditto. The success of this movie had nothing to do with specifically with the talent. However that’s not how Jesse’s resume reads (wink), and as far as the studios are concerned, he’s a hit star as Nikki said.
Thank god. Inception is finally out. It is time for this overrated piece of pretentious crap to go. This weekend is it.
I am so glad. Go away, Inception.
Inception is now a piece of pop-culture and will be talked about for years to come. It won’t go away and you should probably come to grips with that.
I agree with the first poster on this – I was not thrilled with Inception. But you are right as well – most everyone else did like it, and it is somehow considered a ‘masterpiece’. Bleh.
Well….we all knew that Spiderwalk could not let another week go by without trash-talking on INCEPTION again.
Soon….very soon…it will be gone from the theatres after its 760 million worldwide run and you can relax…..
that is…..until it comes out on DVD!!! haha!!
Hey! Rival Studio Exec…. The expression is “COULDN’T care less”. Master that then perhaps you’ll be able to develop better projects. Did you pass on “Yes Country For Old Men” and “NOT To Die For” and “There WON’T Be Blood?”
Let Me IN is a BRITISH Production. It’s better than the original and deserved better than this.
Still should make more than the original.
It’s “Couldn’t Care Less” not “could care less” Grammar people!
Let Me In is well done, but there’s no reason to see it when home viewing access to the classic original is readily available. It should be said, though, that Matt Reeves deserves praise for not bastardizing the original’s essence just to ensure a better chance of profitability.
The Social Network is good but not great. It wasn’t a film that left me haunted or in a deep state of contemplation. There ultimately didn’t seem to be any sense of urgency for why this story needed to be told. It didn’t strike me as a zeitgeist-capturing work, which I guess puts me among a minority. I’m also disappointed that Fincher pussed out and bowdlerized it to get a PG-13. The revisions really stick out. I think he might be going soft on us. Tyler Durden would be ashamed.
Calm down with the Amy Pascal praise. What, she takes one risk in between shit show Adam Sandler comedies, Will Smith + family films and Dan brown adaptations? She needs a movie like this to foster the illusion she has balls.
It’s not so much her but the marketing team that has balls.
She has the power to nix, or greenlight any idea coming out of her marketing team.
When a film pitched at a certain demo does poorly,( and a $24 million weekend that is end-loaded on the coasts is not good) and then its reported that the TV show My Generation (title?) is axed while the Selleck show is holding its own, time to figure out who has the $ to go and the attention span to watch.
EXACTLY!
The chase the 18-34 demo and make it a hard focus on the 18-24 plan is obsolete. That plan got started when the Baby Boomers were in those brackets, and then lived on as they had children of that age.
Now the BB’s have grandchildren in those age brackets. They want to have a film that they will appreciate and be entertained by.
Largest and richest collection of humanity to yet walk the globe but Hollywood just keeps F**** that chicken and making the same old crap.
Let Me In flopped because no one had any idea what it was. If I hadn’t seen the reviews from the festivals, I’d have no idea it existed. Bad marketing.
Noone had any idea what Cloverfield was either, but it was a huge success!
Let Me In disappointing had nothing to do with it being a “unnecessary remake.” Let the Right One In did all of $2.1 million in US business and had no broad marketing.
*uck you drudge, riling this up as an east and west coast vs. rest of country thing. It’s just that us young people find the coasts more desirable to live in, sure there are those that are young that don’t find the big cities desirable, but it’s a very small minority, and obviously this attracts younger viewers who live on the coasts.
Oliver, The money isn’t on the coasts. Granted it is where a large percentage lives. And there are more BB with money than young people. They want quality and know it. Young people don’t.
If Jackass 3-D has a $25 million opening weekend two weeks from now, will that mean it is a hit or underperformed?
Yes, actually. The first one opened with 23 mil and the second with 29 mill. So with higher 3-D ticket prices it should at least do 30 mil.
Don’t Saturday and Sunday count anymore? I’m going to see LET ME IN tonight…
Why would “middle America” not care about Social Network? They all have facebook accounts too. Or is the sight of an eastern college just literally too much for them? Maybe so, but I think the real story is that dramas, especially those without “stars”, just don’t draw as well as other genres. $25m is pretty great for a drama opening about anything these days.
Justin Timberlake is a huge star. He’s a billionare. And Jesse Eissenburg is a teen favorite idol. Just saying.
Lol. No, Justin Timberlake is not a billionaire.
Really? Did you really just think that?
I’m very interested to hear why everyone is hailing The Social Network as an “amazing” and “superb” film that’s going to be the one to beat at the Oscars. Really? I’m 22, and I’ve had a Facebook since the site first launched, and I thought the movie was just alright.
It seems the only people who are really going off about the film are those over 30, who probably just got a facebook last week, or people who have never even been to the site. Fincher is an amazing director and Sorkin an equally talented writer, but get off their dicks, the movie was far from amazing.
A narcissistic 20 year old steals from his fellow students and leaves his friends in the dust for a couple Billion dollars. Was I supposed to be rooting for somebody in this film? Was I supposed to feel sympathetic for some little asshole who doesn’t have to fight to overcome anything because he’s got lawyers and big bank account?
Good movie, not great, definitely forgettable.
I don’t think you got the point of the film. It was about the mystique behind Zuckerberg, what propelled him to create Facebook in the first place, and the fact that as successful as he is, he’s got serious faults worthy of therapy. He will never be happy, if what the film portrayed him as is remotely accurate.
It’s not just about Facebook, and it’s got lots of Oscar buzz because Jesse changed completely in this performance, mastered the art of nuance, and had everyone hating him by the end – the Academy celebrates the ability of an actor to do that. Much of what happened in this saga is despicable.
“the fact that as successful as he is, he’s got serious faults worthy of therapy. He will never be happy, if what the film portrayed him as is remotely accurate.”
That’s the difference between a movie and reality. In reality Zuckerberg has been dating the same girl since his sophomore year in college. She is not white, she is Asian and about to become a doctor. He got away with the money, the girl, and seems like a happy guy to me. No therapy needed. The movie is mostly fiction.
Regardless of the content, the execution of the film is what many filmgoers have been praising. So you didn’t like it? That’s your right, but are you really suggesting, Teddy, that your opinion is superior to that of those over 30 because you happen to be 22? And by the way, it’s cool and all that you’ve “had a Facebook since the site first launched” but at this point even my 60 some year old mother has had one for sometime now.
As expected TSN will grossly underperform. Studio did a horrific job marketing this thing – not help by Timberlake stuttering, stammering through trying to explain what the movie is. The story should’ve been marketed – not the lazy ass approach if the core talking point being it’s the movie about Facebook. People could care less about geekdom – there was a solid story here – and the marketing folks failed miserably.
“marketing failed”
What are you smoking and where can I narc you?
SOCIAL NETWORK was so freakin good. Enjoyable and cool. It was genius to have Trent Reznor do the score – I’ve wondered for years when he would start generating music for film and he delivered great stuff.
The young actors were outstanding.
I think it’s a tough sell w/out a love story besides that of Mark with his computer. So 25m is a very strong number.
Guess you didn’t see Natural Born Killers. (I’m a bigger nerd than you!)
The only market share that won’t enjoy seeing TSN are the dumbsh*ts that don’t get it.
Nikki, why trash Let Me In because you don’t like Ryan Kavanaugh? The movie is actually VERY good, is getting a lot of critical praise,and we should let audiences decide if they like it. Ryan had nothing to do with the making of Let Me In. You may have your reasons not to like him, but please don’t tar a good movie because of it, Relativity got involved in it only very recently
“we should let audiences decide if they like it.”
I went to see it and HATED it. Nikki’s right on on this one.
Aaron Sorkin’s script for The Social Network = BRILLIANT.
Just magic on the page, page after page. A lot of writers in Hollywood would have fumbled this script. Sorkin showed the emotional deftness and subtextual precision here that he showed with great efficacy and brio in many a “West Wing”
script.
He deserves an Oscar nom and win for this. Really. Hope the Academy wakes up from its nap and notices.
If he’s so brilliant why do all of his characters talk exactly the same in everything he has ever done?
Sorkin’s dialogue is an old one-trick pony that should have been put out to pasture a long time ago.
There is some merit in this post. I did like TSN, but the dialogue became repetitive in places, specifically in the jokes. I wish there had been another pass at the script, just to clean all of that up, and then the movie would have been PERFECT.
With most movies even where characters “talk differently”, I could care less what they’re talking about.
Sorkin’s dialogue rhythms, wit, and mastery of story are awe inspiring. Every scene in TSN was a lesson of legendary screenwriting.
I agree. I’ve never followed “West Wing” so I don’t know his TV writing tendencies, but Sorkin’s script for “The Social Network” was nothing short of genius. I’m an aspiring screenwriter and I was blown away by his rapid-fire dialogue and his fluid jumps from past and present scenes.