In arguably another win for star-drive, adult-skewing, R-rated multiplex entertainments, Fury, the new World War II tank-set drama starring Brad Pitt, topped the box office this weekend with $23.5 million. The $68 million release from Sony , produced by QEDInternational, LStar Capital, and Le Grisbi Productions/Crave Films, had opened its weekend with an $8.8m Friday, meaning that the film had an okay but not spectacular 2.67x weekend multiplier. None the less, the official pre-release tracking suggested over/under $25m and that’s pretty much what the film delivered. As boring as it is when the new release lines right up with pre-release tracking, Fury basically did what everyone said it would do over the last couple weeks. Still, better to perform right within expectations than to have to explain a below-par debut. This is not a below-par debut.
The gruesome, R-rated war drama is another solid win for star Brad Pitt and this debut falls right in the upper-range of his “happy medium.” Moneyball opened to $19 million in 2011 while Burn After Reading opened with the same in 2008. Fury is right in the middle of Brad Pitt’s post-stardom (sorry Cool World fans) commercial debuts. No one was expecting World War Z ($66m) or Mr. and Mrs. Smith ($50m), but this got a lot closer to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ($26m) or Inglorious Basterds ($38m) than most were expecting. Considering it had little sell beyond Mr. Pitt and the World War II setting (we can debate how much help his costars, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, and Michael Pena, were this weekend), this is a fine example of genuine old-school star power. We’re within a few weeks of the 20th anniversary of the (then-record-breaking) $36m debut of Interview with the Vampire that arguably announced Brad Pitt’s stardom (Legends of the Fall would seal the deal in early 1995), and if anything Brad Pitt is a bigger star today. Fury may not end up being the Oscar contender some may have been hoping for, although Pitt can certainly try to sell himself and hope the December contenders underwhelm, but it’s going to be another solid adult-skewing R-rated hit for the Fall season.
For director David Ayer, this is easily the biggest hit of his (now five-film) directorial career. His biggest prior opening weekend was the $13 million debut of End of Watch, followed by the $12m debut of Street Kings and this year’s terrible $5m debut of Sabotage. His biggest domestic grosser remains End of Watch, and Fury should pass that (much cheaper) film’s $41m total by nextweekend. In fact, Fury will pass the $26m domestic total of Keanu Reeves’s Street Kings by Monday or Tuesday and passed the $10.5m domestic total for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Sabotage early yesterday. This is a big win for director David Ayer but par-for-the-course for writer David Ayer. This will be his third-biggest opening as a writer behind S.W.A.T. ($37m) and The Fast and the Furious ($40m) and just above the $22m debut for Training Day. Next up for Mr. Ayer is the just-confirmed Suicide Squad movie, which I am presuming will be his new biggest directorial opening weekend and (Warner Bros. hopes) his biggest debut as a writer as well. Brad Pitt vehicles tend to do around 3x their opening weekend whether they are beloved or not, so expect around $71m domestic for Fury and a potential big overseas push for the war drama.
The Book of Life, from 20th Century Fox , opened with a solid $17 million weekend. The $50m production from Reel FX earned mostly strong reviews (and with good reason) and ended up right in the current $16m-$19m sweet spot for recent family entries. The romantic fantasy is loosely based around the upcoming “Day of the Dead” holiday and this opening will hopefully keep it playing strong into the actual “día de los muertos” on November 1st. The animated fable features the voices ofDiego Luna, Zoe Saldana, and Channing Tatum among others, is another solid $16-$19m debut this season for a family-friendly release in a season that has had quite a few of them. Considering Alexander and the Horrible, Terrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day held up pretty well ($12.06m for the weekend, a solid 36% drop and a new $36.87m domestic cume), this is a pretty strong sign that multiple kid-friendly movies that aren’t insanely expensive can thrive in the marketplace. Next up is the (presumably) much bigger Big Hero 6, from Walt Disney and I’m going to wager it will open a bit above the $16-$19m we’ve been discussing. Point being, along with The Boxtrolls and Dolphin Tale 2, there has been so much stuff to take my kids too that I’m almost gladPaddington got moved to January 16th, 2015.
The final new wide release was the Nicholas Sparks adaptation The Best of Me. The Relativity release, which cost just $26 million to produce, earned $10.2m over the weekend. That’s the lowest debut for a Sparks adaptation ever, which I suppose is a bad thing. But to be as fair as possible, James Mardsen and Michelle Monaghan (as much as we adore them) are not big box office draws and the film lacked anything resembling a date night-friendly release date. Yes, Safe Haven, starring those box office dynamos Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel, opened with $21m, but it had the advantage of a Valentine’s Day weekend in 2013. If anything, the 41-year old Mardsen and the 38-year old Monaghan were old enough to target the adult-skewing audience that was already flocking to Gone Girl, The Judge, and Fury. I’m sure the publicity surrounding Sparks’s lawsuit which outed him as (allegedly) a “not very nice guy” didn’t help, but let’s see a more star-filled Sparks adaptation performing this poorly before we assume the brand is damaged. This one is a miss, but it’s also not that big of a deal, so let’s move on.
There were two big platform debuts this weekend. Fox Searchlight unleashed the critically-acclaimed Birdman into four theaters this weekend and the Michael Keaton showbiz-centric comedy soared accordingly. The film earned $415,000 on its first weekend, for a scorching $103.75k per-screen average. This is easily the second-biggest per-screen average of 2014 behind The Grand Budapest Hotel (which earned an eye-popping $811k on four screens this past March). Alejandro González Iñárritu’s dazzling picture is quite-simply one of the best films of the year. As always with mega-successful platform debuts, I’m reluctant to predict long-term box office because it’s always possible that the film may drop dead as soon as it expands beyond a few key cities. Also debuting in limited release is Dear White People. Writer/director Justin Simien’s race-based comedy (and no, I’m not just saying that because it involves black people, it really is very much about race relations on an Ivy league campus) earned almost unanimously positive reviews (I had to miss the press screening due to family illness) and debuted on eleven screens from Roadside Attractions and earned $338k for the weekend. That’s a fine $30,702 per-screen average. It should expand over the next few weeks, and I will see it as soon as it arrives to a theater near me.
In holdover news, Gone Girl earned $17.8 million on its third weekend (-33%). The Ben Affleck/Rosamund Pike thriller crossed $100m domestic Saturday night and will end the weekend with $107.1m domestic. The Judge, from Warner Bros. (Time Warner Inc.) dropped a decent 39% from last weekend, earning $7.94m and bringing its domestic cume to $26.84m. It’s a solid hold, but the $50m Robert Downey Jr./Robert Duvall legal melodrama is going to need strong overseas business to bring it to profitability. Anabelle dropped 50% from last weekend (again pretty solid for a horror film), earning $7.925m and bringing its domestic cume to $74.127m. For comparison, The Conjuring‘s respective 17-day cume was $107m, but this is still frankly a better performance than I expected from the (not-very-good) spin-off picture. It has already out-grossed The Purge: Anarchy ($71m). The Conjuring 2 will open October 23, 2015. Because if it’s Halloween, it must be The Conjuring! Wait… that doesn’t sound right.
Universal’s (Comcast Corp.) Dracula Untold is going to drop a somewhat expected 58% from last weekend’s robust debut. The fantasy earned $9.9m over its second weekend and will end the frame with $40.7m domestic. The $70m film has earned $136.4m worldwide. So brace yourself for Dracula Somewhat Elaborated On in two-to-three years. The Equalizer earned another $5.45m (-44%) this weekend for a new $89.17m domestic cume. The Bill Murray/Melissa McCarthy comedy St. Vincent (a Chernin Entertainment production) expanded to 68 screens this weekend courtesy of Weinstein Company and earned another $0.68m for a new $0.84m domestic cume. The Boxtrolls earned $2.67m for a new $46m domestic cume.
The Maze Runner topped $90 million this weekend after earning $4.5m (-40%) over the frame. As is often the case with Fox releases, the film is scorching overseas, having already crossesd $232m worldwide going into this weekend. Lionsgate’s Addicted earned around $3.55m on its second weekend (-53%), bringing the micro-budgeted erotic drama’s domestic cume up to $12.9m. Jason Reitman’s Men, Women, and Children expanded to 608 screens but earned $320k for the effort bringing the cume to $475k. Focus Features expanded Kill the Messenger to 427 theaters but still earned just $490k (-48%) and brought the Jeremy Renner vehicle’s total to $1.855m. In one-weekend-wonder news, Meet the Mormons will likely drop around 71% on its second weekend, having earned around $715k on its second weekend and (still not-unimpressive) $4.75m domestic cume.
That’s enough for today. Next week sees the release of the Keanu Reeves action spectacular John Wick, which is required viewing for those who like watching bad guys getting shot in the head as well as Universal’s would-be Halloween horror entry Ouija. Because if it’s Halloween… it must be Ouija! No, that doesn’t sound right either. Also debuting in wide release is a sports drama 23 Blast from first-time distributor Ocean Avenue Entertainment. It’s a faith-based story about a high-school football player stricken with blindness starring Dylan Baker, Alex Vega, and Stephen Lang. Spoiler: Dylan Baker is of course the murderer. Opening in limited release is the Keira Knightley/Chloe Moretz comedy Laggies and the Edward Snowden documentary CitizenFour. In the meantime, here is the chart, courtesy of Rentrak:
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