Weekend Estimates: Spectre Misses Record, Peanuts Opens Strong

November 8, 2015

Spectre

After a great night on Thursday and a very good day on Friday, Spectre has faded a bit over the weekend. After posting $28 million on Friday, the film was down about 4% on Saturday to $26.5 million, and Sony is projecting a weekend total of $73 million. Even that number may be a shade high, and it falls well behind the $80 million that looked on the cards earlier in the weekend, and even further behind Skyfall’s franchise-record $88.4 million opening. While by any measure it’s a great debut, the final number does prompt the question: what went wrong over the weekend?

The honest answer is that, while Spectre has good reviews for a thriller, it doesn’t have great reviews for a Bond movie. The film is currently running at 62% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes among reviewers, and scores 71% for moviegoers. That compares to 93% and 86% for Skyfall; 65% and 58% for Quantum of Solace, and 95% and 89% for Casino Royale. In short, the film came out the gate like Skyfall, but is performing like Quantum of Solace on a day-to-day basis. In that context, note that Quantum of Solace posted $27 million on Friday, $25.8 million on Saturday and just $14.7 million on Sunday. If Spectre follows that pattern, it will “only” manage $70 million for the weekend as a whole. That points to a final box office total around $170 million domestically. In brighter news, it looks as though Spectre will pick up around $200 million worldwide this weekend for an early global total around $300 million. It’ll need all the money it can get if it’s going to recoup its $300 million ($250 million after tax rebates and incentives) production budget and hefty marketing costs.

In second place for the weekend, The Peanuts Movie is doing very merry business, with Fox projecting a $45 million weekend for what could perhaps be described as a franchise reboot. As noted yesterday, that puts the film on track for a domestic box office total around $190 million, thanks to its excellent reviews and word-of-mouth, and the big season for family films coming up. It seems like a film that will be particularly immune to competition from Star Wars and The Hunger Games in the next couple of months.

Meanwhile, in limited release, early Oscar favorite Spotlight opened in five theaters this weekend and is projected to make $302,276 for Open Road. Its $60,000-plus theater average suggests that it will get the kind of audience response that an Oscar hopeful needs, but we’ve seen some films (notably Steve Jobs) stumble after similarly impressive exclusive releases this year, so we’ll be watching this one carefully over the next few weeks. Also making a notable debut, and hoping for some awards attention on the acting front at least is Brooklyn, which will average $36,000 from five theaters. Also doing very nicely is Trumbo, with an average a shade over $15,000, also from five venues.

Two other films reporting in so far will top an average of $10,000 this weekend: In Jackson Heights (which might finally get Frederick Wiseman a long-overdue Best Documentary nomination) is set to earn $15,000 or more from sold-out shows at New York’s Film Forum; finally, Peggy Guggenheim—Art Addict will average $11,000 or so from two locations.

- Weekend estimates
- Spectre comps
- James Bond franchise history
- Peanuts comps
- The Martian comps

Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, The Peanuts Movie, Spectre, Trumbo, Spotlight, Steve Jobs, Brooklyn, Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, In Jackson Heights, James Bond, Frederick Wiseman