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#1 ‘The Purge’ Surges For $15M Friday And $34.5M First Weekend, #2 ‘The Internship’ Fetches $7M For $20M

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Saturday June 8, 2013 @ 3:08am PDTTags: The Internship, The Purge, Weekend Box Office

Weekend Box OfficeSATURDAY 3 AM, 5TH UPDATE: This is turning into a wild and wacky overperforming weekend at the North American box office For Universal’s The Purge. My sources saw a big Friday for its moviegoing helped by Tropical Storm Andrea which worked its way up from Florida at midweek to the MidAtlantic’s East Coast and is dumping rain. That’s means people flocked to movie theaters so bigger-than-expected grosses. Insiders say Universal‘s small miscreant horror pic The Purge (in wide release in 2,536 theaters) is opening $15M Friday. This includes $3.4 million at Thursday 10 PM late shows and Friday midnights from 1,751 theaters which tops The Hangover Part III ($3.1M) and even Star Trek Into Darkness ($3.3M). That’s a huge number, even more so considering the R-rated crime spree thriller’s budget was only $3M. Estimates now are to reach $32.5M this weekend – a completely unexpected welcome. It’s the first movie in Universal’s overall deal with Paranormal Activity franchise producer Jason Blum. One reason for the rush to see it was the huge social media response to its creative and digital marketing campaign. It stars Ethan Hawke and Game Of Thrones Lena Headey, and was both written and directed by James DeMonaco (The Negotiator), and produced by Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes. It’s DeMonaco’s original spec script that he developed with producer Sebastien Lemercier and second feature as a director. On Thursday, Fandango said The Purge comprised 54% of online ticket sales, and Movieline 60%, as the #1 horror seller of the year. Fandango called it “a true phenomenon”.

And in #2 is the other wide release movie opening today, Twentieth Century Fox/New Regency’s PG-13 buddy comedy The Internship (3,365 theaters) which also is exceeding expectations. My sources say it made $7M Friday and $20M for the weekend for a budget pegged at $58M. Those grosses include $800K in Thursday late shows and Friday midnights which beat The Campaign’s $625K which also was a laugher starring two big but older stars ”so things are looking up,” an insider tells me. Reviews were awful for the Vince Vaughn-Owen Wilson starrer from director Shawn Levy with every critic complaining it’s a 2-hour commercial for Google. How high grosses go may depend on the CinemaScore to see if moviegoers like the execution of an intriguing high-concept. The studio sneaked the film in 300 theaters around the country for 7 PM shows last Saturday night to help word of mouth. But pre-sales have been soft: pic was passed for the #2 spot in online ticket sales Thursday by last week’s holdover, Lionsgate/Summit’s Now You See Me which right now looks like #4. Hollywood wasn’t expecting The Internship to make $20M – which is the minimum that stars should open a pic – and more like $15M. Hard to believe it’s been 8 years since these actors first teamed up for Wedding Crashers. Even harder to understand why New Line never did a sequel for that. Fox grabbed the June 7th date last October, or 3 weeks earlier than The Internship was supposed to release. Now it’s the first original comedy of the summer.

Here’s the Top Ten based on Friday estimates:

 

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‘Entourage’ Movie, ‘Justified’, ‘Teen Wolf’ & ‘King And Maxwell’ Among Winners Of California Tax Credit Production Lottery

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Tuesday June 4, 2013 @ 1:10pm PDTTags: Big Deals Film, California Film & Television Tax Credit Program, Entourage, King And Maxwell, Teen Wolf, The Purge

The Entourage movie, the fourth season of MTV’s Teen Wolf, the fifth season of Justified, the upcoming CBS Studios-produced King And Maxwell and Pretty Little Liars Season 5 are among the 31 projects picked this year in the state’s $100 million film and TV tax credit lottery, the California Film Commission announced today. Also on the list of winners is a previously unannounced sequel of Blumhouse’s upcoming horror/thriller feature The Purge, which debuts on June 7 from Universal.

Given the green light by Warner Bros back in January, the feature version of HBO’s eight season Hollywood series was always going to film a portion of its big screen debut in California but now they have a 20% tax credit to use. Among the others selected, Shane Brennan’s P.I. series King and Maxwell is one of the few new TV series to get subsidies this year and with a 25% tax credit, a move to California as a Relocating Series. Ordered earlier this year for 10-episode season by TNT, the pilot for the series, which stars Rebecca Romijn and Jon Tenney, was shot in Canada. There were a lot of familiar names this year too. This is the second year that Teen Wolf has received an allocation from the state program. It was selected as a Relocating TV Series in 2012, which made it automatically eligible this year under the Film Commission’s rules. TV series Justified and Pretty Little Liars, who already film in the Golden State and received tax credits last year as well, were re-eligible this year under regulations that place previously selected TV series at the top of the queue for future seasons. See the names of all of the winners of the 2013 California Production Tax Credit Lottery after the jump. Read More »

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Hot Clip: ‘The Purge’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Thursday May 30, 2013 @ 1:19pm PDTTags: Ethan Hawke, The Purge

Ethan Hawke stars in the thriller that follows a family over the course of a single night in which any and all criminal activity – including murder – is legal. The newly unveiled clip below features James (Hawke) and his wife Mary (Lena Headey) as they struggle with a … Read More »

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Universal Moves ‘The Purge’ Back A Week

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Monday April 22, 2013 @ 10:27am PDTTags: The Purge, Universal

Universal now will open the Ethan Hawke-led horror pic The Purge on June 7 instead of May 31. Directed and written by James DeMonaco, the dystopian thriller stars Hawke and Game Of Thrones’ Lena … Read More »

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Hot Trailer: ‘The Purge’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Wednesday April 3, 2013 @ 10:16am PDTTags: Ethan Hawke, The Purge, Universal Pictures

Ethan Hawke reteams with his Little New York helmer James DeMonaco for Universal‘s The Purge. The thriller is set in an America wracked by crime and overcrowded prisons … Read More »

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