‘300: Rise of an Empire’ dominates weekend BO

300: Rise of an Empire debuted to strong numbers this weekend, even if it failed to match the boffo opening of 300. The sequel raked in $45.05 million from 3,470 locations (compared with the first film’s $70.9 million gross) and can largely thank 3D ticket sales for its high returns: 3D screenings accounted for 63 percent of earnings. Thirty-eight percent of the audience for Rise of an Empire was made up of women, an uptick from 300, which drew a crowd that was only 29 percent female. Viewers of both sexes awarded the movie a “B” CinemaScore grade, which isn’t great, and may portend a significant drop in sales over the coming weeks. However, it’s likely the film will continue to perform well abroad. Rise of an Empire may have fallen short of 300 here in the United States, but it out-performed its predecessor overseas. From 58 markets, Empire reaped $87.8 million. Russia led the international crowd with $9.2 million.

The weekend’s other wide release, Mr. Peabody & Sherman performed to 20^th Century Fox’s expectations, though it was still a disappointment for DreamWorks. The update on the classic cartoon grossed $32.5 million. That figure is an improvement over previous DreamWorks films Rise of the Guardians and Turbo, but it failed to match the highs of The Croods and How to Train Your Dragon, which both debuted to over $40 million. Those who did purchase tickets to the film, however, seemed to like what they saw: Audiences gave the movie an “A” CinemaScore rating. That’s a good sign so far as positive word-of-mouth goes, and could help propel the film to an eventual cume of $100 million.

The weekend’s third-place slot went to Non-Stop, which added another $15.4 million to a total that now stands at $52.1 million. The Lego Movie clocked in next with its $11 million gross, a downturn of 47 percent. That drop in sales is the hit movie’s steepest yet, and is probably thanks to competition from Mr. Peabody & Sherman. Lego’s total is currently $225 million.

In fifth place, Son of God earned $10 million, off 61 percent from last weekend. So far, the re-appropriation of The History channel’s “The Bible” mini-series has earned $41.5 million.

Finally, the weekend’s most exciting box-office news comes in the form of The Grand Budapest Hotel. This latest outing for Wes Anderson broke the record previously set by Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master for highest-grossing limited live action debut ever (maybe it’s something in the directors’ shared name?). The Grand Budapest Hotel earned $800,000 in total, which works out to a per-screen average of a little more than $200,000 (the movie opened in four theatres, two in LA and two in New York, this weekend). Budapest will expand to 1,000+ locations over the coming five weeks.

 

‘Rise of an Empire’ to dwarf ‘Mr. Peabody & Sherman’

Seven years ago, CGI sword-and-sandals epic 300 took the box office by surprise when it opened to a wonderful $70 million. The Zach Snyder film, which set the March record for best opening weekend, would go on to earn over $456 million worldwide. 300: Rise of an Empire isn’t exactly a sequel, per se – interestingly, it covers the same span of time as the first movie – but, with a mostly new cast and a different angle on the Greek-Spartan conflict, it’s certainly a follow-up. The question is, will it match the debut of its predecessor? Unlikely. The novelty of Snyder’s signature style has worn off (although Snyder worked on the screenplay, commercials director Noam Murro helmed Rise of an Empire), as has 300’s mix of togas and action; thanks to the popularity of the first film, we’ve seen several copycut productions and spoofs since 2007. Nonetheless, 300: Rise of an Empire is still tracking strong. According to Fandango, the movie is out-selling G.I. Joe: Retaliation in pre-sales, which bodes well for a solid opening: G.I. Joe opened to $40.5 million last March. Also, let’s not forget, Rise of an Empire is screening in 58 markets overseas. Even if it fails to match 300 domestically, it could out-perform its predecessor internationally.

Gunning for second place, DreamWorks production Mr. Peabody & Sherman also opens wide this weekend. March has historically been kind to the animation studio: The Croods opened to $43.6 million in 2013 while How to Train Your Dragon bowed to $43.7 million in 2010. Many pundits are unsure, however, how Mr. Peabody & Sherman will perform. DreamWorks' last two productions, Rise of the Guardians and Turbo, failed to meet expectations and even lost money.  Sherman has so far garnered mixed reviews, and it faces stiff competition from the still-going-strong The Lego Movie. Fandango has the film tracking stronger than Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, which opened to $34 million this past September. 20^th Century Fox, however, is only expecting $25 to $30 million in opening-weekend business.

For specialty devotees, the weekend’s big release comes in the form of Wes Anderson’s latest, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Great reviews and a strong cast – Ralph Fiennes, Saoirse Ronan, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Jeff Goldblum, and cameos by Anderson stalwarts Bill Murray and Owen Wilson – should propel the film to high returns. Think somewhere south of his roundly loved Moonrise Kingdom, which scored the third-best per-theatre average for a live action film when it opened in 2012, but possibly north of Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) and The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou (2004), both of which opened in the low $20 millions.

Overall, the weekend’s box-office breakdown should look something like this:

1. 300: Rise of an Empire


2. Mr. Peabody & Sherman


3. Non-Stop


4. Son of God


5. The Lego Movie

Low-budget horror movie 'The Conjuring' tops expensive tentpoles

As the East Coast and Midwest endured a heat wave, the spine-chilling The Conjuring performed some magic this weekend as it opened to $41.5 million. Made for just half its opening gross, the horror feature combined great reviews with a stellar marketing campaign to coast to the top. Meanwhile, news wasn't nearly as good for the other three wide releases this weekend, which were far more expensive to make.

DreamWorks Animation's Turbo opened in third with $21.5 million, with a five-day total of $31.2 million. That's a disappointment for the animation studio, which spent at least $135 million in production. Meanwhile, Despicable Me 2, which cost just $76 million to make, racked up another $25 million in its third week, easily outshining the debut of Turbo.

Red 2 posted totals of $18.5 million, a few million less than the original. Older males comprised the majority of the audience. The action feature about aging spies performed similarly to The Expendables 2, which starring aging action heroes. That sequel's opening also dropped slightly from that of the original.

The Men in Black-like supernatural buddy cop action-comedy R.I.P.D. bombed, maybe because it included just too many genres. With $12.7 million, it's slightly better than some projections, which doubted if the movie could top $10 million, but this feature will definitely lead to a big writedown at Universal.

In 353 locations, Girl Most Likely averaged $2,000 a screen for a total of $736,000. That's less than expected for the Kristen Wiig-led comedy, which unfortunately has been plagued by poor reviews. Another star-led indie, Only God Forgives, had double the per-screen average, $4,000, for a total of $315,000. Thanks to the star power of Ryan Gosling, the Radius-TWC release is expected to post strong VOD numbers. Meanwhile, The Way, Way Back continued its slow burn, going up 100% as it added locations for another $2.2 million in its third week. The indie beach comedy will expand into over 650 locations on Friday.

This Friday, Wolverine will lead the pack of new releases, while The To-Do List opens in a moderate 500 locations. Also on the menu is Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine.

'Conjuring' will levitate over 'Turbo,' 'R.I.P.D.,' 'RED 2'

In this busy weekend, four new releases will attempt to woo audiences. Turbo (3,806 theatres) jump-started the weekend by opening on Wednesday, earning $5.5 million. That's just an okay debut for the animated feature, which should earn another $25 million or so in the Friday to Sunday period. The "broad, cheerful cartoon" about a snail that wants nothing more than to be fast
"is more affable
than ambitious, which might make it less-than-essential viewing for
families suffering animation fatigue," predicts our critic Daniel Eagan. Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University have more marketing muscle and buzz behind them, and their Rotten Tomatoes averages are both over 10% higher than Turbo's current 66% Fresh rating. With its mid-July release, Turbo may be overshadowed by these early, strong animated offerings. Plus, Planes will offer even more competition in coming weeks in a very crowded summer for family films.

Sometimes, it's the low-budget movies that earn the most at the box office. That's likely to be the case with The Conjuring (2,903 theatres), which has TV ads that make the release look truly frightening. Supernatural horror movies have been doing particularly well at the box office, and this haunted house movie has yet another thing going for it: verisimilitude. Ads have shown interviews with adults who are supposedly speaking out about their experience for the first time in 30 years, and that original documentary spin will give it that extra boost that helped out Paranormal Activity and, of course, the original is-this-real horror film, The Blair Witch Project. This project, which likely cost just $15 million, should open at least twice at high.

On the other end of the spectrum, R.I.P.D. (2,852 theatres) may have cost upwards of $130 million, but it's been plagued by negative buzz, and its opening may be its grave: under $10 million. Eagan says the story of undead cops protecting the world from evil spirits isn't an "epic disaster," but that doesn't mean it's good either: it "strains to
duplicate the flair and chemistry that flowed so effortlessly from
the MIB franchise."

The cheerfully fun gang of aging spies is back in RED 2 (3,016 theatres). "With this sequel, more-is-more works—every over-the-top moment of
it," says our critic Michael Sauter. The original opened to $20 million, and the sequel should debut at least as high, and have strong subsequent weekends as the grey-topped crowd likely to turn out for this action feature doesn't rush to theatres opening weekend.

Besides four wide releases, there are two notable specialty features. Kristen Wiig stars in Girl Most Likely (353 theatres), but this comedy "shoulda been way funnier, given the talent involved," according to our critic David Noh. The feature will likely go as far as Wiig's name will take it. Ryan Gosling reteams with his Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn for Only God Forgives, but don't expect this movie to be an arthouse favorite. It has great music and visuals, but Gosling acts flatly, and there's no narrative to speak of. This indie drama will draw some interest and also fade out quickly.

On Monday, we'll chart the winners and losers in this busy, mid-summer weekend.