TAKE IT TO THE BANKS - THE FILMS OF 9/30

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BanksIsDaFuture
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TAKE IT TO THE BANKS - THE FILMS OF 9/30

Post by BanksIsDaFuture »

A "Magnificent" opening? Sure...by September's standards, anyway.

The long-awaited remake of a remake, The Magnificent 7, opened easily in the #1 spot last weekend, although its $34M wasn't quite the number we expected, and Sony was hoping for. A combination of living acting legend Denzel Washington and Man-of-the-Moment Chris Pratt ("that Pratt's too hot right now!") couldn't open higher than Sully, Sweet Home Alabama, nor neither Hotel Transylvania films, and that's just among September openings. It'll be hard to tell if its opening will be saved by great legs (as Sully has been), since the next two weekends see two pretty big targets for the adult audience. Luckily, both stars have Oscar movies this December that should erase anyone's memory of Magnificent 7's blah box office. Hoping to take advantage of zero competition for families right now, WB opened Storks, but it couldn't take advantage, only opening to $21M and a 2nd place finish. It's no Cloudy or Hotel Transylvania, but with little competition until November, it should more than make up for its slow start. Sully slid incrementally to 3rd place, and will cross $100M sometime this week. The Sept 16th trio of Bridget Jones Baby, Snowden, and Blair Witch continue to disappoint and none will end up with more than $25M at the end of their runs.

Magnificent 7 topped the PTA charts, due simply to its #1 wide opening. The Disney drama, Queen of Katwe, had to settle for 3nd place (4 PTA points), Storks finished in 3rd, and the other limited newcomer, The Dressmaker, was good for only 2 PTA points. Bringing up the rear was Sully, which has nabbed 11 PTA points to date.

This weekend's wide releases...

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Deepwater Horizon (LGF) - Another year, another true story that Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg have brought to cinemas. This time, it's the BP Oil spill and the event that caused it with Deepwater Horizon, blowing pipes in over 3,000 IMAX and regular 2D theaters. Mark Wahlberg plays Mike Williams, the captain of one of the greatest, most successful oil rigs in the Northern Hemisphere: the Deepwater Horizon. On a routine oil exploration trip, the Horizon experiences a massive accident as an explosion caused an oil blowout that killed 11 of the crew onboard. The ensuing fire was so large, it burned for two whole days before sinking the Deepwater Horizon completely, which caused the biggest oil spill in U.S history. Oil cascaded into the Gulf of Mexico for 3 months and owner BP had to eventually pay almost $3 billion in fines due to its harm to the environment. The movie has punched up the star factor for the rigs crew, including Kurt Russell, Gina Rodriguez, John Malkovich, The Maze Runner's Dylan O'Brien, and Peter Berg himself, and also featuring Kurt Russell's daughter herself, Kate Hudson, as Williams' wife at home.

Wahlberg and Berg have only teamed up once before on a true story film, and it happened to be Lone Survivor, which rode critical acclaim and numerous Oscar nominations to over $125M back in early 2014. Of course, Lone Survivor had the extremely exploitable American military angle to fall back on (just ask the highest grossing film of 2014, Merica! Rah!), which Deepwater does not have here. Yet Lionsgate has successfully driven home the middle America angle, mixed with just a touch of the faith-based audience, since the real-life Mike Williams is a devout Christian and thanks his faith as saving his life on the rig. The film is also sporting an excellent 88% on RT days before release, which is higher than both Lone Survivor and American Sniper. With critics on its side and Wahlberg and his cast doing full press rounds, it's hard to think Deepwater won't at least come close to the numbers put up by Lone Survivor.

Deepwater Horizon will open to $29M, amassing 14 Top 5 points, 7 PTA points, and leave theaters with its oil-lined pockets to the tune of $95M. With its price of $14 in the Sept-Nov Leagues, you should make room for this title. At even a modest projection of $60M, that's still a great bargain for its price. If you don't trust Wahlberg more than you trust his chain cheeseburgers, next week's The Girl on the Train would only cost you $3 more and Ben Affleck's The Accountant is only $1 more. One of these fall thrillers are going to come out on top, and I'm putting my bet on Deepwater Horizon.


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Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children (Fox) - It's been almost two fantastic years since we've had to endure a Tim Burton film, and four years since we've seen his signature Edward Scissorhands-lite cinematography, dipped in black shawls and way too much face powder. But all good things must come to an end, and to that, we have Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, lead-shoeing its way into over 3,500 3D and 2D theaters this weekend. After Jacob's grandfather dies, he decides to travel to a faraway island to find the titular home that his grandfather told him tales of for years. He finds Miss Peregrine and the children she cares for, and discovers the island is stuck in time in the 1940s to protect the kids with special powers from people hellbent on destroying them and their safe haven. Starring Asa Butterfield as Jacob and Eva Green as the Miss Peregrine, the cast also includes Terence Stamp, Samuel L. Jackson, Judi Dench, Alison Janney, Gone Girl's Kim Dickens, and Chris O'Dowd.

The tiny genre mixture that Miss Peregrine occupies (too old for children, too kiddie for teenagers, steeped in darker tones that aren't dangerous enough for any real dramatics...) doesn't have a great track record at the box office. 2009's Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant ($6M/$13M), The Seeker: Dark Is Rising ($3M/$8M), and City of Ember ($3M/$7M) all come to mind here: all three were also based on young adult books like Miss Peregrine, and none had any real star power to drive audiences to theaters. Miss Peregrine's adult cast is notable, with a who's who of character actors, but Allison Janney won't be driving 14 year olds into Friday primetime showtimes any time soon. It's most important that the film couldn't cast any young actors that have any sort of Q score - the Peculiar children are presumably the meat of the film, but the marketing has focused on their random "abilities" (is floating an ability now?) instead of them as characters. It won't be enough, at all.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will be more Fright Night (2011) than it will be Lemony Snicket; it will open to $10M, grabbing 2 Top 5 points, zero PTA points, and topping out right around $23M, continuing Tim Burton's descent into director Hell. It's not worth its $13 price tag in the Sept-Nov BO Leagues, and it's too easy to find something that'll make your slate a winner.


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Masterminds (Relativity) - Bringing up the rear this weekend, the long-delayed Masterminds will finally have its day in box office court, as Relativity will finally push it into roughly 2,800 theaters - much to all of our disbelief...honestly, I'll believe it when I see it. Relativity has been mired in legal trouble for years now, and this was another production caught in the fray - it's been on the shelf since it was shot back in early 2014. Starring Zach Galifinakis, Kristen Wiig, and Owen Wilson, Masterminds is the true story of three bank employees who decided to rob the armored truck they were responsible for during the night in Charlotte back in 1997. The passive bank robbery was the 2nd largest in American history at the time, totaling a little over $17M in cash. The comedy is still embargoed, which is never a great sign of things to come. Rounding out the cast is Kate McKinnon, Jason Sudeikis, Leslie Jones, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis (It's Always Sunny's Waitress).

In 2014, Kristen Wiig was freshly retired from SNL, and opted to try her hand at big screen stardom. She joined the cast of Masterminds when Jim Carrey was in the starring role, and had that movie came out as scheduled in early 2015, Wiig would've had a nice-sized hit on her hands. Instead, Carrey dropped out shortly after Wiig joined, and was replaced by The Hangover's (and nothing else, really) Zach Galifinakis. Zach is notorious for living on a farm in North Carolina and stays far away from Hollywood whenever he's not filming/promoting, and the box office returns of his films reflect that. He's not a draw in any sense of the word, and Owen Wilson has been regulated to 3rd or 4th billing in comedies for years now. Mastermind's has a lackluster cast, and it's managed to turn a true story ripe for comedy into a snoozefest - if the marketing is to be believed. September and October are awful months for any comedies - The Big Year ($3M/$7M), My Best Friend's Girl ($8M/$19M), and The Heartbreak Kid ($14M/$36M) can all attest to this.

Masterminds wouldn't have been worth whatever price we'd given it two years ago, and it damn sure isn't worth $6 in any BO Leagues in 2016. It should open to only $6M, zero Top 5 points, zero PTA points, with a total domestic run around $17M. Grab it if you dare.



This weekend's limited releases...

American Honey (A24) - From Andrea Arnold, the award-winning director of the early Michael Fassbender film Fishtank, American Honey is the story of Star (newcomer Sasha Lane), a drifter teenager who falls in with a posse of traveling magazine salespeople, and gets to know them and herself as they travel the country together, partying hard and wreaking havoc amongst each other for fun. Co-starring Riley Keough and Shia LaBeouf, American Honey currently has a lukewarm 67% on RT, but is riding a great marketing campaign from A24 and will open in single-digit theaters in NY and LA.

Earlier this year, A24 had a great run of limited openers: The Lobster put up 12 PTA points, Green Room amassed 8 PTA points, and Swiss Army Man won its opening PTA weekend before expanding too quickly for its own good. Even for all of A24's prestige as a distributor, they've had their fair share of misses as well: Morris From America, Remember, and Equals all couldn't muster more than a handful of points, even with great single-digit openings. American Honey has plenty of favorable reviews, and between Shia and Sasha Lane, they have the charisma and star power to generate interest for arthouse audiences. It should easily win the weekend, and with no notable limited releases for the next two weeks, a PTA total >10 is firmly within play.



Denial (Bleecker Street) - Based on a true story, Denial stars Rachel Weisz as Deborah Lipstadt, a historian who must prove the Holocaust happened beyond a shadow of a doubt in court, after a Holocaust denier (Timothy Spall) sues her for libel after Lipstadt labelled him a "Holocaust denier". The movie, rightfully, fully stands behind Lipstadt in its story telling, and currently sits at a pedestrian 65% on RT.

Weisz, a one-time Oscar winner and A-list movie star, has already had three films this year alone, to varying degrees of success. On one hand, she helped The Lobster to great box office numbers and 12 PTA points, but couldn't prevent last month's Complete Unknown from being a Complete Bomb in its limited run. On the other hand, Bleecker Street has only had two limited releases this year: Captain Fantastic (6 PTA points) and Eye In The Sky (11 PTA points) - both of which had more going for them than Denial does. For $3, it's one of the best cheapie limited options this season. If you need to plug in the last slot, Denial or October's Moonlight are easily the best choices.



Oil, Tim Burton, And Bank Robbers For The Weekend of September 30th-October 2nd:

1. Deepwater Horizon - $29M
2. Magnificent 7 - $18M
3. Storks - $15M
4. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - $10M
5. Sully - $7M
-Masterminds - $6M

PTA: American Honey, Deepwater Horizon, Denial, Magnificent 7, Storks

Next week, we'll have Walleye take on the wide release trio of The Girl on The Train, Birth of A Nation, and Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life.
Alexandra Daddario: Eyes of a Demon, Face of My Future Ex-Wife

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Walleye413
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Re: TAKE IT TO THE BANKS - THE FILMS OF 9/30

Post by Walleye413 »

Good stuff. I totally agree on Burton. Such an inventive director that seems to have lost his way. I've got no faith in the new one - although Box Office has it opening way bigger. I was beginning to think I was the only one who thought the Emperor has no clothes.

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numbersix
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Re: TAKE IT TO THE BANKS - THE FILMS OF 9/30

Post by numbersix »

Wow, some pretty ballsy predictions this week, Banks.

Going to disagree with you on Miss Peregrine, but only slightly. I think the popularity of the books, and the marketing push based on Burton's name shuld be enough to make this hit the low 20s or high teens. i think of it as Dark Shadows minus Depp's draw.

Deepwater Horizon does look like the better offering, although I'm hearing so little buzz (outside of the good reviews) I'm also wondering if this will do much at all.

And don't doubt Denial. Weisz may not be a draw, but any film dealing with WWII is.

1. Deepwater Horizon - $22M
2. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - $19M
3. Magnificent 7 - $17M
4. Storks - $13M
5. Sully - $7M

PTA: American Honey, Denial, Deepwater, Miss Peregrine, Magnificent 7

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Re: TAKE IT TO THE BANKS - THE FILMS OF 9/30

Post by Shrykespeare »

Theater Counts:

Miss Peregrine - 3,522
Deepwater Horizon - 3,259
Masterminds - 3.042
Denial - 5
American Honey - 4


Next Week:

The Girl on the Train - 3.000+
Middle School - 2,600
Birth of a Nation - 2,000



Celebrity Birthdays:

Linda Hamilton turned 60 on 9/26
Jeffrey Jones turned 70 on 9/28
Jon Bernthal turns 40 on 9/30
Camilla Belle turns 30 on 10/2
Happy 60th birthday Jet Li! (4/26/23)

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Re: TAKE IT TO THE BANKS - THE FILMS OF 9/30

Post by Ron Burgundy »

the PTA picks looks really good. im not sure which is of better value.

i think miss peregrines is made more for worldwide audiences. though i agree with six, think it'll open a bit higher than u say banks.

and i drafted deepwater in round 4 for full year draft based on the lone survivor team. fingers crossed it becomes a hit
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Re: TAKE IT TO THE BANKS - THE FILMS OF 9/30

Post by Shrykespeare »

Friday Estimates

Miss Peregrine, $9M
Deepwater Horizon, $7.1M
Magnificent Seven, $4.6M
Storks, $3.1M
Sully, $2.5M
Masterminds, $2.3M



Weekend Projections:

Miss Peregrine, $27M
Deepwater Horizon, $20M
Magnificent Seven, $15.5
Storks, $13.3M
Sully, $8M
Masterminds, $6.3M
Queen of Katwe, $2.5M
Bridget Jones' Baby, $2.3M
Don't Breathe, $2.3M
Suicide Squad, $1.9M
Happy 60th birthday Jet Li! (4/26/23)

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Shrykespeare
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Re: TAKE IT TO THE BANKS - THE FILMS OF 9/30

Post by Shrykespeare »

Weekend Estimates

Top 10:
5 points - Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, $28.5M
4 points - Deepwater Horizon, $20.6M
3 points - The Magnificent Seven, $15.7M
2 points - Storks, $13.8M
1 point - Sully, $8.4M
Masterminds, $6.6M
Queen of Katwe, $2.6M
Don't Breathe, $2.4M
Bridget Jones' Baby, $2.3M
Snowden, $2.0M



PTA:
Top 10:
5 points - Denial
4 points - American Honey
3 points - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
2 points - Deepwater Horizon
1 point - The Magnificent Seven
Happy 60th birthday Jet Li! (4/26/23)

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BanksIsDaFuture
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Re: TAKE IT TO THE BANKS - THE FILMS OF 9/30

Post by BanksIsDaFuture »

Wow, can't believe I was so off on Miss Peregrine. I don't get the appeal of the movie, nor know what audience was clamoring for it.

Also, Denial beating out American Honey was surprising. That damn Holocaust.
Alexandra Daddario: Eyes of a Demon, Face of My Future Ex-Wife

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Re: TAKE IT TO THE BANKS - THE FILMS OF 9/30

Post by Shrykespeare »

Weekend Actuals

Top 10:
5 points - Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, $28.9M
4 points - Deepwater Horizon, $20.2M
3 points - The Magnificent Seven, $15.6M
2 points - Storks, $13.5M
1 point - Sully, $8.3M
Masterminds, $6.5M
Queen of Katwe, $2.5M
Don't Breathe, $2.4M
Bridget Jones' Baby, $2.3M
Snowden, $2.0M



PTA:
Top 10:
5 points - Denial, $18,746
4 points - American Honey, $17,801
3 points - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, $8,197
2 points - Deepwater Horizon, $6,205
1 point - The Magnificent Seven, $4,253
Happy 60th birthday Jet Li! (4/26/23)

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