Weekend Wrap-Up: Miss Peregrine finds a Home at the top with $28.87 million
October 4, 2016
The overall box office was about as strong as expected, as Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children beat expectations by the same amount as Deepwater Horizon missed expectations. This helped the overall box office grow 10% from last weekend to $114 million. However, this is still 24% lower than this weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2016 still has a lead over 2015, but that lead has shrunk to 4.9% or $390 million at $8.50 billion to $8.10 billion. If 2016’s lead falls below $325 million, then we will need to panic. Remember, last year ended with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which earned $650 million before the end of the year. Rogue One isn’t expected to earn half of that, so 2016 is going to need a $325 million lead or it will need better depth in order to come out ahead. I would prefer the former.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children showed that the young adult adaptation genre isn’t dead just yet and it would make sense for other studios to give similar films the green light. Just don’t spend $110 million making them. This film earned first place with $28.87 million. Additionally, its internal multiplier was 3.19, which shows it was playing better with families and adult fans of Tim Burton. This should help its legs going forward, since family films historically have good legs. Meanwhile, its reviews are 65% positive while its CinemaScore is a B+. Both of these are good enough not to hurt its legs, but not strong enough to help either. Assuming it can find a sizable audience internationally, it will break even, eventually.
Deepwater Horizon won’t be as lucky. The film only managed $20.22 million, which isn’t a disaster compared to predictions, but it is a disappointment. Excellent reviews and a solid A- from CinemaScore should help its legs. Should. If it falls faster than expected next weekend, then its theater average will be low enough that theater owners will drop it in favor of the new releases. Of course, this is immaterial when compared to the film’s $156 million production budget. Even when you take into account the minimum $32 million tax credit from Louisiana and the international sales, this is a bad opening for Lionsgate. This is a bad opening in a year of bad results for that studio.
The Magnificent Seven fell 55% to $15.63 million over the weekend for a ten-day total of $61.53 million. Its chances of getting to $100 million took a major hit over the weekend. It could still get there, but it will likely need a push by the studio to get there.
Storks was a little better than expected earning $13.48 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $38.49 million. The film cost $70 million to make, so Warner Bros. is hoping it will make at least that much money domestically. That seems like a reasonable goal at this point.
Sully rounded out the top five with $8.28 million over the weekend for a total of $105.26 million after four days of release. It topped $100 million on Saturday, making it the 20th film of the year to get to that milestone and the sixth such film released by the studio this year. They’ve had a couple of critical failures, but they can’t complain about their box office numbers too much.
Masterminds stumbled with just $6.54 million over the weekend, which was barely above the Mendoza Line ($2,000/theater). Add in weak reviews and a CinemaScore that was just B- and there’s little hope that this film will have good legs.
- Deepwater Horizon Comparisons
- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Comparisons
- Masterminds Comparisons
Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Masterminds, Deepwater Horizon, Suicide Squad, The Magnificent Seven, Storks, Sully, Tim Burton