This weekend, two films traded places, as War Room dramatically exceeded expectations, and We Are Your Friends bombed almost on a record breaking level. It posted the third worst wide opening in history, besting only Delgo and The Oogieloves (there’s some awful company to be in). Oogieloves is the record holder, launching in 2,160 screens for a weekend of 443K. Just… atrocious. We Are Your Friends landed a 772 per screen average. It had the strongest social media tracking of the new openers, proving that social media doesn’t always translates into ticket sales. That was a problem American Ultra experienced last week as well. We Are Your Friends didn’t have support from critics or audiences, getting a C+ cinemascore. This weeks other new wide release was No Escape, which managed a B+, and a better than expected opening weekend of 8.2M. Still, not great, but it was on the high end of its projections. The breakthrough success was War Room, which opened above both Fireproof and Courageous for an 11M weekend, and a 2nd place finish.
In other news, Jurassic World added 600 screens for an IMAX rerelease weekend and managed to crack the Top 10 weekend. Not a bad weekend for Universal, which saw its third film of the year able to hold the #1 position for three straight weeks with Straight Outta Compton. Last weekends films experienced harder drops than most, with Sinister 2 dropping 55%, Hitman falling 53%, and American Ultra hit with 48%. Compare that to Mission Impossible’s 27%, The Gift’s 26%, Ant-Man’s 24%, Minions 23%, and Inside Out at 15%, and this was a catch up weekend for most people. The newer the release it seemed, the harder the drop. Even Compton had a harsh drop at 49%.
In limited release, Grandma continues to be a star performer with a 16K per screen. New release Z for Zachariah was dead on arrival, with a 2K per screen, despite three rising stars in the cast. The Diary Of A Teenage Girl added 700 screens, but no one actually wanted to see the film in major markets. It posted a disastrous 535 per screen average. That’s less than We Are Your Friends, and honestly, less than Terminator Genisys or Paper Towns. In fact, of the 43 movies tracked by Box Office Mojo, Diary only beat The Overnight and Love and Mercy in per screen average.
Runner up in the limited release category is Learning To Drive, featuring Patricia Clarkson and Ben Kingsley, which managed a healthy 8K per screen in its second weekend. Final news, Minions crossed the 1 billion mark worldwide, making it only the 23rd film in history to do so. Another superstar at the foreign box office has been Terminator Genisys, which has made 320M in foreign territories, which is a little more than what Mission Impossible Rogue Nation currently has in foreign money. If we get a Terminator sequel, it’s because of the overseas money, not because Americans are asking for more.
Hopefully though this weekend, Zac Efron will refrain from following suit of Max Landis, who ranted last weekend on Twitter about audiences not wanting original ideas. Perhaps, America just had a hard time justifying a 10 dollar ticket to see a vaguely marketed EDM movie about a DJ with dreams.
1) Straight Outta Compton- 13.2M Weekend, 134.1M Total
2) War Room- 11M Weekend, 11M Total
3) Mission Impossible Rogue Nation- 8.3M Weekend, 170.3M Total
4) No Escape- 8.2M Weekend, 10.3M Total
5) Sinister 2- 4.6M Weekend, 18.5M Total
6) The Man From UNCLE- 4.4M Weekend, 34.1M Total
7) Hitman: Agent 47- 3.8M Weekend, 15.2M Total
8) The Gift- 3.1M Weekend, 35.9M Total
9) Jurassic World- 3.1M Weekend, 643.0M Total
10) Ant-Man- 3M Weekend, 169.1M Total
11) Minions- 2.9M Weekend, 324.8M Total
12) American Ultra- 2.8M Weekend, 10.4M Total
13) We Are Your Friends- 1.8M Weekend, 1.8M TOtal
14) Vacation- 1.7M Weekend, 55M Total
15) Fantastic Four- 1.7M Weekend, 52.6M Total
16) Ricki and the Flash- 1.7M Weekend, 23.4M Total
17) Trainwreck- 1.6M Weekend, 105.1M Total
18) Pixels- 1.5M Weekend, 70.9M Total
19) Inside Out- 1.3M Weekend, 344.5M Total
20) Shaun The Sheep- 1.1M Weekend, 16.3M Total
??) Mistress America- 430K Weekend, 910K Total
??) The Diary Of A Teenage Girl- 425K Weekend, 925K Total
??) The End Of The Tour- 321K Weekend, 2.3M Total
??) Grandma- 309K Weekend, 486K Total
??) Learning To Drive- 122K Weekend, 214K Total
??) Z For Zachariah- 88K Weekend, 58K Total
??) Digging For Fire- 48K Weekend, 77K Total
