Halloween Weekend...
Weekend Report: 'Nightcrawler,' 'Ouija' in Dead Heat Over Halloween
by Ray Subers - November 2, 2014
Nightcrawler and Ouija essentially tied for first place over a quiet Halloween weekend.
Meanwhile, Before I Go To Sleep and the Saw 10th anniversary re-release each bombed.
The Top 12 earned an estimated $81.9 million, which makes this one of the slowest weekends of the year. That can partly be attributed to the "Halloween effect": moviegoers were preoccupied with other activities on Friday, which set the weekend back quite a bit.
This is a chicken-and-egg sort of thing, though: fearing this Halloween effect, the big studios avoided the date entirely. Had someone stepped up to the plate with a broadly appealing offering, the aggregate box office wouldn't be nearly as low.
As it stands now, Nightcrawler and Ouija tied this weekend with $10.9 million. Open Road Films has Nightcrawler earning $9,000 more than Ouija, though other sources suggest Ouija came out on top. With Sunday numbers still up in the air, there's a strong chance that the ranking swaps when actuals report on Monday.
Nightcrawler's $10.91 million debut is noticeably lower than star Jake Gyllenhaal's End of Watch ($13.2 million), and is also a tad below Drive (2011) ($11.3 million). It also fell short of last weekend's John Wick ($14.4 million).
Still, the fact that this managed to hit $10 million should be considered a minor win. The movie had reviews on its side, but little else: it was hard to get a sense for the story, and Gyllenhaal's unhinged lead character was tough to get behind. Open Road Films did a decent job positioned it as a fast-paced, unique thriller, and the lack of competition surely helped a bit as well.
While reviews are fantastic (94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), moviegoers were less impressed: they gave Nightcrawler a poor "B-" CinemaScore, which suggests word-of-mouth will be mixed. Ultimately, look for this to wrap up with around $30 million.
Ouija eased 45 percent to an estimated $10.9 million. That's a fantastic hold for a supernatural horror movie: similar genre entries tend to drop at least 55 percent in their second outings. This is particularly baffling given the movie's horrible reviews and poor word-of-mouth, and a teenage audience that doesn't tend to show up after opening weekend.
To date, Ouija has earned a solid $35 million, and could wind up at $50 million by the end of its run.
Fury (2014) added $9.1 million this weekend, which brings its 17-day total to $60.4 million. Not far behind was Gone Girl, which eased 20 percent to an estimated $8.8 million. On Sunday, Gone Girl will pass star Ben Affleck's Argo at the domestic box office ($136.6 million vs. $136 million).
The Book of Life rounded out the Top Five with $8.3 million ($40.5 million total). Last weekend's second place title, John Wick, fell to sixth this weekend with $8.05 million. Through 10 days, the Keanu Reeves action movie has taken in $27.6 million.
St. Vincent earned $7.75 million this weekend, which is nearly identical to its haul last weekend. It only had a minor theater expansion (2,552 vs. 2,282), so this qualifies as a pretty fantastic hold. Word-of-mouth is clearly strong on this title: it's earned $19.5 million so far, and is now guaranteed to end up north of $40 million total.
Birdman expanded to 231 theaters and earned $2.51 million (per-theater average of $10,866). Fox Searchlight is planning to expand the movie to nearly double that theater count next weekend, putting it in the range of 425 to 450 locations.
Playing at 1,902 theaters, Nicole Kidman/Colin Firth thriller Before I Go to Sleep opened to a very poor $2.03 million. That's well below the first two movies from Clarius Entertainment: And So It Goes ($4.64 million) and Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return ($3.75 million).
Saw 10th Anniversary took in an estimated $650,000 from 2,063 theaters. That's one of the worst debuts ever for a movie playing at over 2,000 theaters: the only titles that earned less are last year's Oogielovers In The BIG Balloon Adventure ($443,901) and 2008's Delgo ($511,920).
Assuming a ticket price of $8, Saw 10th Anniversary sold an average of 39 tickets per theater this weekend.
Around-the-World Roundup
Thanks to a strong start in China, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles easily led the foreign box office this weekend.
The movie earned $34.7 million, which brings its international total to $244 million. Most of that came from China, where Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles opened in first place with an impressive $26.5 million. That's a bit higher than Thor: The Dark World, which debuted in China around the same time last year.
The movie has now earned $434.5 million worldwide, and could eventually pass $500 million with help from Japan early next year.
The Maze Runner also got off to a solid start in China this weekend. The movie opened to $13.7 million, which is roughly on par with The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Overall, The Maze Runner added $23.8 million for a new total of $208.5 million; including its domestic revenue, the movie has now banked over $300 million worldwide.
Gone Girl continued to impress at the international box office: the David Fincher thriller took in $15.3 million, which brings its total to $142.4 million. It had strong holds in most markets: in South Korea, it was off a light 10 percent to $4.1 million.
Fox International has now earned $3.25 billion this year; that's the biggest ever single-year total for a studio ahead of Paramount's 2011 haul ($3.21 billion). The biggest contributors to this pot are X-Men: Days of Future Past ($512 million), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes ($499 million), How to Train Your Dragon 2 ($438 million) and Rio 2 ($367 million). The studio still has Penguins of Madagascar and Exodus: Gods and Kings on the way this year, and will almost certainly finish well north of $3.5 billion.
Fury expanded to a total of 44 markets and took in $14.6 million. In Russia, it was a strong second place finisher with $3.3 million. To date, the Brad Pitt World War II movie has grossed $37.8 million overseas.
Annabelle grossed $13.5 million at 62 markets this weekend. The horror movie repeated in first place in Mexico with $3.4 million; overall, it's now earned $149 million total.
Dracula Untold added $12.4 million for a new total of $136.1 million. It opened in first place in Italy with $3 million, and took in a decent $1.4 million in Japan. Dracula will likely pass $200 million worldwide sometime next weekend.
Guardians of the Galaxy passed Maleficent this weekend to move up to second place at the worldwide box office this year (behind Transformers: Age of Extinction). The movie has now earned $765 million worldwide.
