Weekend Estimates: Fury an Unspectacular First
October 19, 2014
Fury will top the box office chart this weekend with a solid, but unspectacular, $23.5 million, according to Sony’s Sunday morning estimate. Pre-weekend projections had the film closer to $30 million, and with an $80 million price tag, and Brad Pitt starring, the film is really underperforming at this point. By way of comparison, Gone Girl opened with $37.5 million three weeks ago. Fury will need really good legs, or a really strong performance overseas, to post a profit.
This weekend’s other wide releases were The Book of Life, which will earn about $17 million, per Fox, and The Best of Me, which will hit around $10.2 million for Relativity. The former will be hoping for long legs leading up to Halloween and is getting the kind of reviews and word-of-mouth buzz that suggests it will have them. The latter is hoping no-one reads the reviews.
Looking at the limited releases, it’s safe to say we’re now officially in Awards Season. Birdman is the standout film this weekend. It’s set to open with around $415,000 in four sold-out theaters, for an average of $103,750. That’s second only to The Grand Budapest Hotel among opening theater averages this year, although at this rarefied height, the theater average is more a function of the capacity of the theater than the demand to see the film.
Also making an excellent debut, and getting excellent reviews, is Dear White People, which will bring in around $344,000 in 11 venues for an average of $31,000 or so.
Other films reporting so far that look like they will top a $10,000 per theater average are The Tale of Princess Kaguya with an excellent $51,686 expected in three theaters; God the Father, with $15,010 in one theater; Listen Up Philip is headed for $24,291 in two venues; and two returning films will cross $10,000: St. Vincent with $685,000 in 68 theaters, and Whiplash with $210,801 projected from 21 theaters. Both of those last two look conveniently just over the $10,000 theater average bar, so we’ll have to see whether the actual figures hold up.
Bruce Nash bruce.nash@the-numbers.com-Thumbnail.jpg)
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Theater Averages, St. Vincent, The Book of Life, Gone Girl, The Best of Me, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Whiplash, Dear White People, Listen Up Philip, Kaguyahime no monogatari, God the Father, Brad Pitt