Weekend Estimates: Martian Avoids the Burnt Zombie Crisis

November 1, 2015

The Martian

Halloween is a horror show for new releases, with none of them able to break a $2,000 theater average and The Martian enjoying a fourth weekend at the top of the chart. The sci-fi movie will earn about $11.4 million this weekend, for a total of $182.8 million, per Fox’s Sunday morning projection—down 28% from last weekend. The adult-skewing audience for the film meant it wasn’t badly affected by Halloween on Saturday, with its daily gross up 32% from Friday. In comparison, Goosebumps was up just 9% on Saturday, which leaves it too much to do to steal top spot. Sony projects the family adventure-horror film will end the weekend with $10.25 million over three days and $57.1 million in total. The new wide releases, meanwhile, will barely earn $10 million between them.

Burnt tops the list of new films with an under-cooked $5.038 million projected by Weinstein, and a theater average of $1,678. Out Brand is Crisis will pull in an equally-diabolical $3.43 million for Warner Bros.. What’s remarkable about those launches is that the films star two of the most bankable actors in the business. According to our Bankability Index, Bradley Cooper is the 16th most valuable person in the industry, with an annual value of $18.9 million and a value of about $7 million per film; Sandra Bullock is 21st with $16.9 million annually and a massive $14 million per movie (the highest for any actress). Each film is massively under-performing by those measures. It’s Bullock’s first flop since All About Steve, which actually did quite a bit more business six years ago. Bradley Cooper has been much more hit and miss, with the lightweight Aloha and the out-and-out bust Serena following massive hits American Sniper and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Also crashing to a heavy defeat this weekend is The Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, which is headed for $1.77 million from 1,509 theaters. That will only be enough for 12th place, and its combination of a $1,173 theater average and a decidedly Halloween theme will condemn it to a steep drop next weekend and a rapid exit from theaters.

One final note on new releases: all of them performed worse than The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which popped up on Friday and Saturday with a total of $364,600 from 166 theaters. It’s average of $2,196 per theater is better than any of the new wide releases.

In limited release, Love will top the theater averages with $30,124 projected from two theaters.

- Weekend estimates
- The Martian comps
- Goosebumps comps
- Bridge of Spies comps
- Steve Jobs comps
- Rock the Kasbah comps
- Jem and the Holograms comps

Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Goosebumps, The Martian, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, Burnt, Our Brand is Crisis, Love, Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper