'Butler' and 'We're the Millers' stay on top of new releases

Despite three new releases hitting theatres, the top two films were returning releases. In week two, The Butler led with $17 million, a scant 30% drop from opening weekend. In second place, the comedy We're the Millers dipped 25% to $13.5 million in its third week, a sign that audiences are connecting with this drug smuggling caper.

The World's End had the best relative performance of the three new offerings. Generating $8.9 million on 1,549 screens, fans of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg clearly turned out. Devotees of the so-called "Cornetto Trilogy" (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are the first two genre-skewering comedies) gave the final installment its best opening yet, drawing an audience that skewed male, with the majority of attendees under 30.

Many in the industry expected that the horror feature You're Next would top the box office, but
instead this tale of a family under siege was the worst of the lot, opening to just $7 million. Just when you think horror is a sure thing, a movie like this falls flat. In fact, it was the worst horror movie opening yet in 2013. Still, its budget was likely fairly low, unlike this week's biggest loser: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.

Lily Collins stars in this adaptaion of a young adult novel, which was made for $60 million in hopes that it would launch a trilogy. No dice. Instead, the feature had a weekend total of $9.3 million,
and a five-day opening of $16 million. The audience was 68% female, with 46% of those turning out under 21. Even this bulls'-eye demographic turnout didn't prevent them from giving it a CinemaScore rating of "B+," when the same audience likely would have given Twilight an "A++!++!"

Blue Jasmine expanded into over 1,200 theatres this weekend, and it held on to its audience. The per-screen average dropped two-thirds, which is actually a fairly strong hold for such an aggressive expansion. That meant the Woody Allen comedy finished ninth with $4.3 million. That's a bit off Midnight in Paris, but the strength of the figures suggests that this story of a rich housewife married to Madoff-like villian could approach the $30-40 million range, compared to Paris' $56 million total.

 

'World's End' and 'You're Next' join 'Mortal Instruments'

Yes, summer is finally coming to an end. Labor Day is generally considered a dead weekend for movies, so this pre-holiday weekend sees the last of the summer crop--which tends to be some of the season's leftovers. On the small-to-indie side, however, there are plenty of gems in the mix of this week's releases.

Teens may--or may not--swoon for Lily Collins starring as the heroine in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (3,046 theatres). The young adult adaptation opened to $3 million on Wednesday, and it's on track for a $15 million five-day total. Although there have been a number of Twilight copycats made into movies, including Beautiful Creatures and The Host, none of them have even approached the success of the vampire-human romance. Our critic Harry Haun despised the overuse of CG and a derivative feel that "uses a little of this and a little of that
from all the lowbrow genres." It seems at least in this case, teen girls agree, since this $60 million feature is expecting such a soft opening.

"Exploitation aficionados who bemoan the Disneyfication of Times
Square and the loss of the amazing, decrepit grand dames of
grindhouse that lined West 42nd Street" are the target audience for the horror flick You're Next (2,400 theatres), according to FJI's Frank Lovece. He describes the story of a family fighting off mysterious, homicidal home invaders as a "no-holds-barred homage to ’70s and ’80s horror flicks." Amidst so many high-budget tentpoles, audiences have sought relief in horror movies like The Conjuring. You're Next could have similar luck, and I would expect an opening north of $20 million.

Writer-director Edgar Wright and
writer-star Simon Pegg embark on their "third genre sendup after the zombie romp Shaun of the Dead and gonzo buddy-cop adventure Hot Fuzz" with The World's End (1,400 theatres), FJI's Kevin Lally sums up. What starts out as a bar crawl turns into an alien invasion movie. "Wright’s direction is wonderfully playful and
energetic, and the script he and Pegg have contrived is full of
surprises," he writes approvingly. Fans of Pegg and Wright should turn out for this comedic feature, which Focus is giving a smaller wide release to pack the theatres with laughs.
Woody Allen gets his widest release yet as Blue Jasmine expands into 1,200 theatres. The comedy about a riches-to-rags housewife has earned $9.4 million in four weeks, with its average take most recently holding at $10,000 per screen in over 200 locations. Even if its per-screen average dips to $2,000 with such a large expansion, the movie would best last week, with a $2.4 million total. If it can keep its per-screen drop to 50%, Blue Jasmine might earn $5 million, a real coup for the feature, and a performance that would put it on track not too far behind Allen's 2009 hit Midnight in Paris.

One of the best indies to come out this year (at least according to this author's review), Short Term 12 is one of those little movies that should. Writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton based the story of a supervisor in a group home for teens on his own experiences working in a similar facility. It doesn't shy away from the reality for these troubled kids: every two steps forward involves another step backward, and it would easy for the characters to lose hope. But they don't, and the movie doesn't either. It's highly worth a watch.

Arthouse filmlovers may flock to martial arts film The Grandmaster (7 theatres),
but a smattering of early reviews suggests that interest may stop
there. The "moody outing from director
Wong Kar Wai," as described by critic Daniel Eagan, focuses on legendary
martial arts teacher Ip Man but is "never much fun, either as
action or romance." The brand-name auteur and martial arts premise may
draw viewers this weekend, but it sounds like this will not be a
crossover indie hit.

On Monday, we'll see how the three wide releases--and the expansion of Blue Jasmine--fared in this crowded end-of-summer weekend.