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UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
SUNDAY AM, 4TH UPDATE: Seriously, why do studios open movies on Oscar weekend? With attention otherwise diverted, it’s hard for me or Hollywood to care about these two newcomers Friday. Audiences didn’t either. That’s why the Melissa McCarthy/Jason Bateman frenemies comedy Identity Thief is #1 in its third weekend after going up +63% from Friday to Saturday for $14M through Sunday.
Summit Entertainment/Lionsgate’s father/son actioner Snitch (2,511 theaters) opened #1 Friday and dropped to #2 Saturday despite bumping +36%. It logged a mediocre $12.8M weekend. That’s a rare failure for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. (No harm, no foul: I hear he really excels in surefire hit Fast & Furious 6.) Audiences gave Snitch a ‘B’ CinemaScore which won’t help or hurt the pic.
Dimension Films/The Weinstein Company’s new extraterrestrial thriller Dark Skies (2,313 theaters) from Paranormal Activity‘s Jason Blum fell out of the Top Five altogether by the end of the weekend. It received only a ‘C+’ CinemaScore from audiences to hurt word of mouth for just an expected $8.4M weekend.
Finally Twentieth Century Fox’s first-place finisher from last weekend, A Good Day To Die Hard, fell apart Friday and struggled through Sunday. Guess those horrible reviews finally caught up with it.
Total moviegoing this weekend looks like $99M, down -26% from last year. Here’s the Top Ten based on weekend estimates:
1. Identity Thief (Universal) Week 3 [Runs 3,222]
Friday $4.0M, Saturday $6.6M, Weekend $14.0M, Cume $93.6M
2. Snitch (Summit/Lionsgate) NEW [Runs 2,511]
Friday $4.1M, Saturday $5.6M, Weekend $12.8M
3. Escape From Planet Earth 3D (Weinstein) Week 2 [Runs 3,353]
Friday $2.3M, Saturday $5.2M, Weekend $11.1M, Cume $35.2M
4. Safe Haven (Relativity) Week 2 [3,223]
Friday $3.5M, Saturday $4.7M, Weekend $10.7M, Cume $48.2M
5. A Good Day To Die Hard (Fox) Week 2 [Runs 3,555]
Friday $2.8M, Saturday $4.7M, Weekend $9.7M, Cume $51.5M
6. Dark Skies (Dimension/Weinstein) NEW [Runs 2,313]
Friday $3.0M, Saturday $3.5M, Weekend $8.4M
7. Silver Linings Playbook (Weinstein) Week 15 [Runs 2,012]
Friday $1.5M, Saturday $2.9M, Weekend $5.9M, Cume $107.3M
8. Warm Bodies (Summit/Lionsgate) Week 4 [Runs 2,644]
Friday $1.4M, Saturday $2.3M, Weekend $4.8M, Cume $58.2M
9. Beautiful Creatures (Warner Bros) Week 2 [Runs 2,950]
Friday $1.0M (-54%), Saturday $1.6M, Weekend $3.4M, Cume $16.4M
10. Side Effects (Open Road) Week 3 [Runs 2,070]
Friday $1.0M, Saturday $1.6M, Weekend $3.4M, Cume $25.2M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Believe it or not, there are plenty of people who don’t give a rip about the Oscars. Just like there are folks who don’t care about the Super Bowl. For them, a new movie is just the ticket. Most appealing effect is the abbreviated b.o. report.
Great comment on all points.
And, as self-obsessed as the Academy Awards are, its total viewers are only a sliver of the 300+ million population in the country. And, much of those viewers are [gasp!] “older” which Hollywood devalues in its target demographics for film & tv anyway.
Post-January horror films always open around 10 million so this is not that bad for Dark Skies.
I doubt that anyone associated with Dark Skies is happy with $9m. especially considering everyone involved. And $9m is not $10m.
Shame! Snitch was actually a decent film.
I’m sure this is considered counter programming, going for the audience they know doesn’t care about the Academy Awards and for which this weekend has no significance.
why would it be a problem to release on oscar weekend? its not like the world stops and no one goes to the movie theater. I mean Oscars is on a sunday anyway
Clearly, they dont remember Alice in Wonderland made over $100 million during Oscar weekend.
My guess is that most of the studios with Best Pic nominees roll out their movies for an encore showing. Even though the 9 best pics obviously won’t all crack the top 10, cumulatively, they represent pretty tough competition.
Assuming the 9 pics average $1.5-$2 million domestic this weekend, that’s like opening against a solid $18-20 million pic.
You’re right on the money, jonathan. I always watch the Oscars, but I don’t get Nikki’s assertion that somehow one Sunday evening ceremony is going to somehow fill up an ordinary moviegoer’s entire weekend. Is she actually suggesting that most American film lovers are spending their Friday and Saturday nights this weekend preparing for the Academy Awards?
“Why do studios open movies on Oscar weekend?” you seriously call these “things” movies? It’s garbage thrown onto a large screen. I live for movies and haven’t seen a movie since early december.
Really? You say you “live for movies”, yet you’ve apparently skipped The Hobbit, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Zero Dark Thirty, and Amour – just to name a few of those that have opened since early Dec.? Love them or not, these are pretty significant flicks. What movies do you live for then?
Les Mis and Hobbit sucked. Les Mis tops my list for worst film of 2012!!! Amour was depressing as hell, albeit well made. Zero Dark Torture was boring.
I’ll give you Django.
Bravo! You are not the only one…
It sounds like Nikki is saying that Oscar weekend is a bad weekend to open a film, that’s why …
Why would anyone release movies during Oscar weekend? Well, one, because not all moviegoers are obsessed with the Oscars and want a break from movies. Two, the Oscars air on Sunday night, and most moviegoers actually attend the theaters on Friday and Saturday nights, and three, a lot of Oscar-nominated movies see business pick up during Oscar weekend as people try to catch up on the movies and roles being nominated for Oscars.
If Warm Bodies can open to twenty million dollars on Super Bowl weekend, then why can’t something open just as well on Oscar weekend?
So if Identity Thief drops 50% or less, it should have a solid shot at number one.
Unless Die Hard has legs, which isn’t likely.
OMFG, reviews can kill a film? You mean, Hollywood should actually try to make a good film instead of just relying on the franchise name and slapping a known character into some crappy action script? You’re kidding. That’s news to me. I really thought DH5 was going to be #1 for like 10 weeks in a row.
Damn, must go back to drawing table. Maybe writers are important?
Who are you talking to. Your post has little to do with the one you’re responding to.
Snitch is a tweener and it bombing isn’t a surprise. Gotta know the difference between a movie and a movie of the week. This is the second bomb-ski for Exclusive this year. No bueno.
Are you talking about END OF WATCH? That movie cost $9 million and made $40. SNITCH apparently cost $14 million and will end up around the same. How are those bombs for Exclusive? I don’t work there, but purely as an adult male movie fan I’m happy that somebody is making action movies with some brains and ambition for people like me. I’d so much rather pay my $12 on a weekend for something like EOW or SNITCH than some bloated p.o.s. from a big studio.
Well, studios only collect around half of the box-office gross. Teather owners don’t work for free. And Marketing can easily match the production costs. Thus, Snitch will lose mmuch money.
Except Exclusive isn’t a studio. They’re a foreign sales company. They probably covered 80% of the budget of each of those movies on foreign pre-sales. The distributors of each (Summit for SNITCH) and I think Film District or Open Road for EOW, I can’t remember) got good movies to market for very little upfront cost. Everyone will make money on both of them.
Completely wrong. End Of Watch was a major hit due to low cost and Snitch will be the same for same reason. Exclusive is actually on a roll with these two and Woman In Black. Get a grip.
The link doesn’t appear to give the estimates for the week ending 2/24.
Btw, Hansel and Gretel already has $150mm wordlwide cume?
It looked DOA to me, but int’l territories are becoming more and more important (H&G actually has outgrossed Silver Linings Playbook, despite SLP literally doubling H&G’s domestic gross, $98 to $49).
It’s too bad, because this just gives studios more incentive to make CGI, high-concept blue-screeners and less incentive to make quality, character-driven, complex subject films like SLP.
“Silver Linings Playbook” could have been the best film ever made, earned $500m domestic, taken every major Academy Award, and studios still wouldn’t have taken the hint. Hollywood doesn’t understand an abstract concept like “quality”, so artistic merits are irrelevant.
When a movie succeeds, the rival studios only pay attention to the film’s cast, subject matter, and marketing campaign. At best, “SLP” will encourage casting directors to contact Cooper and Lawrence, and maybe inspire people to make films about mental illness. Even the Weinstein Company doesn’t understand why “SLP” succeeded, so there’s no hope for a cultural revolution no matter how the movie fares.
Also, the film is a success, regardless of how it fared against the unrelated “Hansel & Gretel”.
Just to play off of what D. Rouleau said about movies appearing to be DOA. You can’t always sentence a movie to failure status or DOA status based on it’s opening weekend, especially if the film is a low budget film. Go back and archive all the box office analysts that called Tom Cruise’s, Jack Reacher a flop after it opened to $15 million. The list is huge. Three months later, Jack Reacher has become a $200 million gross, blockbusting, franchise starter, which is still packing them in overseas. Yes, most films that open on the low end of expectations, are going to struggle to become hits, but Jack Reacher and possibly some of these recent openers, are going to be quite successful.
Alice In Wonderland opened in the first week of march hence the new Oz movie opening March 8.
It’s funny to read b*tching about “taking on the Oscars” when Sunday night there’ll be non-stop b*tching about how much the Oscars suck.
I’m one of the few who actually enjoy Oscar night.
Why open on Oscar weekend? Because a growing percentage of the population knows that the Oscars are all bull and politics, so they don’t bother paying attention (i.e. Oscars dropped to third most watched event last year). Nikki should know, she’s always dishing on Harvey Weinstein and his silly machinations for Oscar gold.
Harvey Weinstein doesn’t just buy awards. His company now gets into bed with the pro-censorship Parents Television Council. Look closely at the newspaper ads for “Escape from Planet Earth”.
A Good Day To Die Hard is bombing hard. Let’s hope now they won’t make them anymore. There was no reason to do this one. Only that Bruce wanted to be Lead actor in a movie that will have box-office success and get money. Since his career as Lead actor is pretty much over and he can get successful only when he plays supporting role next to other actors.
World doesn’t stop when Oscars are going. I personally don’t care about it too much anymore. I will watch. But it’s not like i count hours to it. Or read every article.
Problem every year is that by the time Oscars come – we already know who the winners are. Argo for best Picture. Day-Lewis for Actor, Hathaway for Supporting. Only surprises will be in supporting actor (but no one really cares will it be Jones or Waltz. Boring category this year). And I don’t really care that much about best actress. Spielberg will probably have it in Best Director. And we have to thank them for cutting out Affleck from that one. Because they would give it to him.
People don’t care that much about Oscars. Because once again – everything is very predictable.
Even if what you are saying is true it sounds like it is not that predictable. You think you know 3 of the major category winners and do not know the other 3 major category winners.
I go to the movies every week and read most of the major entertainment websites and magazines – and honestly I’d never heard of Snitch until this box office report came out. Haven’t seen a single trailer at the movies / on TV or a single movie poster – anywhere!
By contrast the Dark Skies trailer has been all over the place.
I live in New York. Did the studio give up on the coasts and just concentrate on middle America?
The only movie I want to see is Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D, but my theatre is only showing it at 11:40pm, way too late to see a movie!
No one cares about the Oscars anymore. No one makes decisions based on the Oscars. That’s archaic thinking indicative of someone who works a blog, instead of actually working in Hollywood.
There is plenty of data showing that oscar nominations and victories equal increased box office and home video revenue. You’re way wrong.
that is so dumb, that I’m speechless. look at the numbers before and after a movie gets an Oscar nomination (Hurt Locker excepted, which had a tiny audience no matter what.) And if it wins? Brokeback Mountain went over 100 million when it won, there are myriad examples. The advertising costs the same as the superbowl because so many people are focused on the movies. You speak for few, and those who are not interested in original movies flourishing.
The numbers may be what they are because people at least want to check out what is supposed to be superior. The truth, most people consider award winning movies as over-hyped cr@p. Usually they are long, boring, and a waste of time. In fact, I was skeptical to see SLP because it was being considered for awards; glad I went as it was actually very good.
you’re contradicting yourself here. by your own admission people want to check out “what is supposed to be superior” so right there the oscars have increased box office, doesn’t matter the person’s individual motives, money is money.
Guys, go back and reread the first 2 sentences.I’m pretty sure that Nikki ‘s commentrefelected more on the fact that entertainment reporters/bloggers/journalists (like herself!) & other Hollywood entertainment industry types just do not have the time this weekend to devote to new films because ALL their time and attention will be focused on The Oscars… But I have to say, whether you are into The Oscars or not, this week (yet again!) blows as far as new releases go. The ONLY film I have seen since the start of 2013 is Side Effects. And YES, with the exception of Life of Pi, I have seen all the Oscar nominated Best Films.
Dear “Snitch” producers, if you wanted to appeal to urban audiences don’t call/title your main character “Snitch”. It’s a street thing…
For the MJDB joker who actually wanted to see “Hansel”, you need to be water boarded.
Listen “The Truth”, I don’t know who you think you are but that was a very rude insult. Hansel and Gretel just looks like a fun hour and a half time passer, with good visual effects. I’m not saying its an Oscar contender like Argo, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty etc (which I saw all of those by the way and loved them) but just keep it to yourself when you think someone should be “water boarded” alright because maybe you should take yourself and get “water boarded”!
Dimension was on a path to greatness from 1995-2000. Then the whole studio fell apart. What happened?
Civilian Oscar-watchers (like myself) may be catching up on older releases before the big show. This weeek I went to two matinees — Zero Dark Thirty and Les Miserables — and now I can better enjoy the ceremonies.
I don’t really care about the Oscars at all. I always end up watching them for a bit, but in the last few years in particular I’m amazed at how bad they are, how terrible and awkward the jokes are, etc.
The hosts the last few years really have been putrid, and IMO there haven’t been a lot of award-worthy films that have been released. Also, today’s celebs lack the glamour of the stars of even recent decades.
I saw the “Die Hard” picture. It’s two hours of blazing guns, car chases, and explosions…over a missing file. You have to be familiar with the franchise, and even if you are, you only have a sketchy idea of what’s going on, you certainly don’t care about anybody. The ability to tell story in an action feature seems to be a lost art. Props to the special effects guys though.
It’s true. TV series get you more up to speed if you’ve missed a couple of episodes than franchise films ever do about the previous films. They just assume at face value that you know what’s going on. Lazy screenwriting, lazy (or incompetent) studio development are often at the heart of franchise misfires and busts. If you haven’t been following it you may not be able to follow it if you check in mid-series franchise, indifferent word-of-mouth to follow.