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SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM: Yes, I went AWOL from Friday night’s North American box office. But can you blame me? With these two pics opening this Super Bowl weekend?
UPDATE: So Sony Pictures spinmeisters respond: “Clint Culpepper is one of the most successful executives in this industry. The film over performed. He makes genre movies and he makes them well. Easy A was one of the best films of the year. What was mysoginistic about that, or Burlesque or Country Strong or Dear John. And if strong women characters at the center of two very popular franchises (Resident Evil and Underworld) is somehow demeaning to women, I would love to understand why.”
Increasingly, Sony Pictures’ Screen Gems has become the Odd Lots of movie divisions: you never know what you’re going to find there, but you know it’s cheap crap. Worse, Clint Culpepper is one misogynist dude when it comes to picking plots: it’s always woman getting victimized in horror movies or most recently women fighting woman, ad nauseum. Obsessed, Burlesque, and now The Roommate, the blatant rip-off of Single White Female and every uber-bad Lifetime movie about deranged college girls starring Tori Spelling or Shannon Dougherty. Seriously, Clint, this is how you counter-program Super Bowl weekend? SERIOUSLY? Worse, this pic doesn’t even feature two legitimate stars: instead, it’s B-level TV actors Minka Kelly (Friday Night Lights) and Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl). Even the parent company is embarrassed by this drek: the execs can’t even bring themselves to give me pre-release briefings on Screen Gems stuff anymore. All they would tell me is, “We counter programmed Super Bowl weekend with a title appealing to teen girls/young women as we have done so successfully in the past with Screen Gems titles during the Super Bowl frame.” They claim the movie overperformed and was only supposed to make between $10M and $12M this weekend. Oh, and they say it cost $16M which means the pic nearly grossed its negative cost during the first three days of release and became the 8th film since 2001 that Sony has opened to #1 during Super Bowl Weekend. The film played stronger to females and overall the film skewed younger, with 65% of the opening weekend audience female and 61% under age 21.
Relativity and Universal did what they could to market James Cameron’s connection to Sanctum 3D and the fact that he exec produced it. But the public didn’t buy it: they want him directing before they turn out in droves. Good thing Universal and Relativity claim they paid only around $12 million for the flick, which Uni also opened day and date in the UK and Australia and earned $3.1M, and debuting in New Zealand on February 17, and Japan on April 22nd. I really thought this film could connect because it used the same 3D techniques which Cameron used in Avatar, only this time the film and the technology took audiences into the furthest reaches of the subterranean world. But the story for this so-called action thriller was weak, as evidenced by only a “C+” CinemaScore. According to exit polling, moviegoers were 47% male vs. 53% female, and 35% under age 30 years vs. 65% over age 30. Of the theater count, 178 ran the film in Digital 3D Imax which accounted for 17% of the gross.
1. The Roommate (Screen Gems/Sony) NEW [2,534 Theaters]
Friday $6.4M, Saturday $6.8M, Weekend $15.6M
2. Sanctum 3D (Relativity/Universal) NEW [2,787]
Friday $3.6M, Saturday $4.4M, Weekend $9.2M
3. No Strings Attached (Paramount) Week 3 [3,050 Theaters]
Friday $2.9M, Saturday $3.9M, Weekend $8.4M, Cume $51.7M
4. The King’s Speech (The Weinstein Co) Week 11 [2,584 Theaters]
Friday $2.3M, Saturday $4M, Weekend $8.3M, Cume $84.1M
5. Green Hornet 3D (Sony) Week 4 [3,033 Theaters]
Friday $1.7M, Saturday $3.2M, Weekend $6.1M, Cume $87.2M
6. The Rite (New Line/Warner Bros) Week 2 [2,985 Theaters]
Friday $1.9M, Saturday $2.7M, Weekend $5.5M, Cume $23.6M
7. The Mechanic (CBS Films/Sony) Week 2 [2,704 Theaters]
Friday $1.7M, Saturday $2.6M, Weekend $5.3M, Cume $20M
8. True Grit (Paramount) Week 7 [2,902 Theaters]
Friday $1.4M, Saturday $2.5M, Weekend $4.7M, Cume $155M
9. The Dilemma (Universal) Week 4 [2,545 Theaters]
Friday $1.1M, Saturday $1.7M, Weekend $3.4M, Cume $45.7M
10. Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Week 10 [1,977 Theaters]
Friday $1M, Saturday $1.7M, Weekend $3.4M, Cume $95.8M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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thanks for the box office
No strings attached is amazingly good. Both the green hornet and near are the beat time I’ve had in the movies in quite sometime
Waah! Too bad Jimmy Cameron, apparently, no one wants to see yet another movie about idiots who go cave diving. Morons shouldn’t be cave diving anyway, as its one of the most dangerous activities on the planet. Me? I’m rooting for the cave.
Team Cave!
Any excuse to use the term “spelunking” is fine by me.
Was that another one from Universal?
Seems like Hollywood can’t find anything new so they just reuse the same ole junk. Look at lakeview terrace with samuel l jackson. It’s just a unlawful entry with a twist! Look at Roomate, it’s a copy of Single White Female. Do we really need a Scream 4? This time, Sidney will die? Or else there is no twist to the story. They really didn’t have to do a Scream 4, just another crappy ReBoot! But this time use Emma Watson, have an English twist to the tale, or make Sidney a dude. Call him Randy, and have someone who is a Michael Jackson impersonator, be the killer….
Scream 4 is the only movie I’m looking forward to seeing in the next 3 months. And I know a lot of other people feel the same way dumb ass. The buzz on it is great.
160 page script, actresses quit, screenwriter of the first 3 was fired/quit then badmouthed the movie, 2 sets of reshoots…sounds really, really promising!
Lol. Some of the funniest nonsensical comments on Deadline lately. Must be anonymous producers who think they can write posting. Yes, I’m speaking directly to the one responsible for The Roommate.
Sanctum was good btw.
Didn’t really care for THE FIGHTER but am shocked that it hasn’t kept pace with movies like BLACK SWAN and THE KING’s SPEECH, which were similarly small budget but have shown far greater Box Office legs.
Does anyone know what the heck happened to The Fighter? It just seems to be fade, fade fading from view with the Oscars drawing nigh. I anticipate it will only garner one or maybe two acting awards and get shut out the rest of Oscar night. Thoughts?
The Fighter is extremely leggy, it will end over 90M and it could even get to 100M – excellent performance considering the 25M budget – , it is also the frontrunner in two acting categories and only 2 films won multiple acting Oscars in the last decade (Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby), so taking that into account, I think its Oscar-prospects are rather impressive, even if it will be “only” a nominee in the main categories (picture, director, screenplay).
Having said that, I wasn’t a big fan of the film. Good film, good directing, good writing, GREAT performances – IMO only the performances were Awards/Oscar-worthy, everything else was good but not great. Subjective, I know.
I don’t think it is an underperformer because Black Swan and The King’s Speech are doing better, those two are the OVERperformers in a big way…and in the end, we should be just happy that quality films like these (AND True Grit AND Inception etc.) are suddenly succesful again meanwhile several of the high-profile “bad-to-mediocre” movies are underperforming. That’s definitely a trend I can fully support.
Totally agree with your assessment, though I haven’t seen Fighter. I just fear it will be like all the other boxer movies. That said, I may sneak a peak before the awards.
I saw the Fighter this weekend. It was much better than I expected, more a character study than a boxing film. The performances were excellent! I’m Irish and the actors really nailed it.
it is not fox searchlight thats why
damn — took long enough
If there was any weekend for Nikki to take some time to enjoy herself on a Friday night and put off the weekend box office, this was the one.
One nice thing about this Oscar season is that we haven’t had to hear the kind of whining that went on the last couple of years about how the Academy Awards are “out of touch with the American public.” Even putting aside TOY STORY 3 and INCEPTION, there are three Best Picture nominees (TRUE GRIT, KING’S SPEECH and BLACK SWAN) that’ll gross over $100 million, and two more (SOCIAL NETWORK and THE FIGHTER) that’ll just miss that mark. Americans are paying to see good movies again!
THE ROOMMATE excepted, of course…
Hate to tell you but 100 mil is the new 50 mil. It now takes 100 mil to open anything over and above the production budget so 100 mil at the domestic box office still leaves a lot of red ink to make up in foreign and ancillaries. Plus these films play mostly on the two coasts where the ticket prices are now upwards of 15 bucks a pop.
“Hate to tell you but 100 mil is the new 50 mil…”
Not for movies that cost $25 million or less (BLACK SWAN, THE FIGHTER, THE KING’S SPEECH), it ain’t. And no film makes $100 million without appealing to audiences throughout the country, not just the two coasts.
And there’s no city where non-3D movies cost “upwards of 15 bucks”…yet… *shivers*
Don’t forget P&A. You still have to cover marketing and dist. There’s your 50 mil just in overhead.
are you an idiot? $50M domestic is break even (or very close) on these films that cost less than $25M and probably cost less than that for their distribs to pick up. Foreign and ancillary is gravy. $75+ is a big hit. and who gives a shit where it’s getting its money, from the coasts or flyover, the number’s the number?
Dude, Oscar campaigns alone cost a minimum of 10 mil these days and both King’s Speech and The Black Swan have easily gone over that. Plus they have both added huge TV ad campaigns into the mix meaning the publicity costs on these two films were easily 50 mil +. I just love when people talk about the production budget on these specialty films as if that’s the major cost of the movie. It just shows you don’t know what you’re talking about.
And riddle me this one kids. Why have the studios shuttered most of the specialty division in the last few years if these films make bank? Why is Universal making noises about getting rid of Focus? Why is that only hedge fund idiots with no sense and too much money bankrolling these flicks? Come back to me when you can answer that one.
And if you don’t believe that tickets are 15 bucks come to LA and I’ll take you to the Arclight. Depending on whether the film is first run, a premiere or a matinee the cost is between 12 and 17 bucks and that’s where the speciality films initially play when they’re getting their ballyhooed large per screen grosses. 12 bucks is when you show up before 5 PM on a weekday. 3-D is even more. In NYC, I hear it is worse.
3D does go upwards of $15. But that’s not what you’re talking about. You’re talking about the ticket prices of the Oscar movies, and even in the center of Manhattan you would be hard-pressed to find $15 tickets for those. Regal prices are currently at $13 in Union Square. And other big East Coast cities are a few bucks less.
And specialty divisions are shuttering because not many specialty films go over $10 million, let along $50 or $100. You’re off the mark picking on The King’s Speech and Black Swan. Even with all the marketing costs, $100 million+ grosses will make them healthily profitable (shady accounting practices aside).
I hear what you are saying, Bill. This, however, is what’s crazy. The marketing push for Black Swan and King’s Speech came on more ferociously when those films started accruing critical acclaim and awards. Those films now are rewarding their creators and investors by continuing to gallop to the impressive $100m threshold.
The shocker is The Fighter, which is in the same ball park as the other two movies in terms of budget. The big difference? The Fighter benefited from exponentially huge amounts of publicity across all platforms — tv ads, sports magazine articles, journalistic puff pieces. Given that, I am curious as to why it isn’t even on this Top Ten list. Shouldn’t it be keeping pace with Black Swan and King’s Speech? Or, as I suspect, is the public saying the emperor has no clothes? The Fighter, imho was severely overrated and cinematic pap. Sure it will make money. But it’s no Rocky. And as a study in family dysfunction it’s no Little Miss Sunshine, either. The writing was a mess — thank you for not awarding it a WGA screenwriting crown this weekend guild members !!! — and only out-of-this-world performances by Bale and Amy, NOT stellar directing from Russell, saved it from being a treacly tale of emotionally tone-deaf pugilistic excessiveness.
Not all theatres in LA charge $15. The Arclight is a special theatre. I can still see a new movie at a theatre in LA for $10-11 (non-matinee). Though I looove the Arclight.
Sorry, Bill, it’s not worse in NYC. Top price at the Ziegfield is $13.50, at the big new AMC’s $13. Go before noon and it’s $6. I went to the 10:30 a.m. showing first weekend of “King’s Speech,” and the largest auditorium at the Loew’s near Lincoln Center was packed.
One more thing. I guarantee you Harvey will show the producers of The King’s Speech how it didn’t make any money – lol. And his expense figures will be waaay higher than mine.
Since WB can produce accounts cthat show that the Harry Potter film before the present one can lose money despite pulling in over $900 million gross then it seems you don’t have to just be a speciality or indie ‘hit’ to not make any money.
(Which really just makes one wonder how ANY film gets made at all any more, since seemingly none of their performances are good enough to have them make any green stuff, if you believe everything)
Hollywood accounts can make a film ‘look’ any way the studio wants it to at the end of the day.
I would love to see “The Social Network” win Best Picture, but it’s great to see a movie like “The King’s Speech” is doing so well. It’s a little heartening to know there’s still an audience for this kind of movie across North America.
Granted, most ‘smart’ movies flop at the box office, but the success of “Grit”, “Speech” and “Swan” is pretty sweet.
Sanctum
My eyes are bleeding.
Some beautiful shots, but the 3D was extreme.
the music was bad
Green Hornet sucks. It’s an action movie with misplaced comedy. The hero is weak. His sidekick does the crime fighting and the hero is the comedy relief. Juvenile. Pass on that.
True Grit shines. On the par with movies like The King’s Speech and Black Swan. Classic Coen Brothers jewel.
So far, 3D is just a gimmick. No movie has actually used the new dimension as a story medium in a meaningful way, kinda like when sound came to movies. Every talking looked like a play on screen. I’d say give the technology another year or two before filmmakers learn how to use it properly.
3D is not going to last another year or two.
I’ll drink to that! From your lips to God’s ears.
Funny how you say that when studios already have 3D movies in their pipelines through the next 3 or 4 years. Do not speak if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Black Swan is gonna make over one hundred million at the box office, I never saw that coming. But the movie rocks. It’s actually one of the better horror movies I’ve seen in years. I know it isn’t marketed as horror but it is. Compared to the other garbage horror movies out there it’s a master piece. No wonder the word of mouth as spread like wild fire.
It’s not a horror. If anything, a “thriller”. If you put them in the same category, then… I loved Black Swan. The suspense was great and the acting superb. However, I thought Mila Kunis could have been used a bit more.
Aronovsky himself used the term “were-swan” – perhaps somewhat jokingly – to describe his film.
Horror, thriller, drama? One of the great things about Black Swan is how Aronovsky worried less about what genre the film would fall into and more about just making a movie.
I found it amazingly 70s-ish, in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby or even the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It’s an awesome film.
I went to see Black Swan at 4:45 on Sunday and it was sold out (in Washington DC). Unbelievable. Had to go to another theater to catch it.
On the other hand, neither my friend or I liked it.
Well, I was dragged kicking and screaming to see Sanctum tonight. And for the first 20 minutes I thought I might assassinate my man for making me go. BUT… and I hate to say this – it gets very very much better. The tension heats up, they remember what they were doing there in the first place and people start to die. Seriously, my new French tips made my palms bleed. (OH come on, I am a valley girl made good!) Particularly good was (and I am going to massacre the name but can’t be bothered to check IMDB) was “Ioan Gruffudd” who I loved in Hornblower and in King Arthur and who takes a completely different and surprising turn here. Kind of All-American Asshole and he pulled it off superbly. Move over Aarob Eckhart. Also Richard Roxborough who just rules the close-up. dDoesnt seem to be doing anything at all but manages to say so much. Class act. Less so the others, but I’ll admit, it can’t have been easy down there with the 3D set up and all the equipment. My fave Ozzie to watch was a wide-eyed comedian by the name of Dan Wylie.
All in all, I am not mad at my man. He might even get a hug tonight. Sanctum is a fine film.
Neat, ‘Black Swan’ and ‘The King’s Speech’ should make it to $100 million plus final grosses.
Hey, where did ‘The Fighter’ go? I liked those other movies but I can’t believe Black Swan and King’s Speech caught up to the The Fighter. Never saw that coming. Mark Wahlberg and Co. must be bummed a bit. They are still making solid cash on The Fighter but they probably thought a ballet movie or a period British movie wouldn’t stand a chance against their paint-by-numbers Boston boxing tale. They were wrong, in a huge way. Surprising.
The trailer I saw for Sanctum made it look like a cross between an IMAX documentary and an old Disney True Life Adventure. Both of those are fine, respectable sorts of movies, but they usually don’t dominate the top chart positions at the box office. It looks like the Green Hornet has really benefitted from the way the scheduling worked out over the past month. I sure didn’t think it woould be able to lope along in the top 5 for more than 3 weeks.
Congratulations to the Black Swan, which should be passing by the total domestic gross for Yogi Bear 3-D right… about… now. By next weekend it might pass by The Social Network, and then, Narnia? $100 million+ is not too shabby for a shot-on-16mm movie.
@Tuff. “Scream 4″ is as good as part one. The twists are very surprising. Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven have corrected their mistakes with “Scream 2″ and “Scream 3″. Don’t knock movies until you’ve seen them.
Also, “Sanctum” was produced by Cameron not directed. Nuttymadam, sorry you hate Cameron so much. I bet if he directed a dreadful Twilight movie in 3D you would adore him for bringing you Taylor Lautner’s abs closer to your eyes. The reviews for the film may not have been stellar, but the 3D was praised for being great.
I’m baffled as to why James Cameron pushed Sanctum so hard. It’s a turd of a film, and it’s going to bomb. Cameron cheapened himself by throwing his weight behind Sanctum just because it combines two of his pet loves – diving and 3D.
@ Fists of Fury
The Fighter continues to show strong legs, has a lot of award recognition in the form of nominations, and will do at least around $90m. It’ll also have a strong life on DVD, etc for many decades to come. They can’t all make $100m, but if it were to win 2 of the actor oscars, and be re-expanded for a short time, then it might be able to get there.
There is no need for a re-expansion of this film at this point as it’s still in its first theatrical run. Social Network did it specifically to bring its presence back into the minds of Oscar voters.
Agree, and we have a full three weeks before the Oscars. I can see Fighter in the post $100 numbers by then.
I question all those bashing Sanctum if they have actually seen it. While not the best flick ever, it’s very entertaining and the 3D was very impressive. The sets all looked amazing as well. The only thing that was a bit of a let down is the writing. Some of the dialogue is very cheesy and some of the characters seem to change personalities throughout the film. Overall it made for 2 hours of intense enjoyment and I’d recommend more people check it out first then give feedback.
Yeah, but The Fighter should have crossed 100 some time ago. It’s a real crowd pleaser that was marketed as generically as possible. Strong WOM got it to where it is. A great campaign would have put it through the roof.
They said the same thing about Cinderella Man when it was re-released with total failure. I think fading movie stars playing white boxers who live in sepia tone worlds with sounds of sappy orchestral swells – I think it comes off as a bit forced and medicinal.
To be fair, Easy A was a great title released from screengems (even if it was poorly marketed). And as for the roommate, I don’t think you can blame them. Those actresses look so similar the movie was inevitable and probably wrote itself.
not posting the box office is weak it’s one of the #1 functions of this site
Screen Gems’ quality control. Non-existent.
Like some others posting here, I was dragged to see Sanctum in IMAX and it is MUCH MUCH better than it looks. It was tense, amazing looking and sometimes funny. They don’t make em like this anymore. The 3D is good, so I guess that is Cameron’s main reason for being part of this, but his fingerprints are all over the movie. I can’t understand how the film didn’t make more money. I think it will do big worldwide.
Why would Universal open Sanctum on Superbowl weekend? Were they trying to bury this thing? The movie delivers and it could have been a hit.