‘Need for Speed’ crashes at box office

Jesse Pinkman deserves better. Hollywood’s latest videogame adaptation undercut what were already modest expectations this weekend when Need for Speed failed to nab first (or second) place at the box office. Instead, the Aaron Paul-starrer earned a disappointing $17.8 million. Its debut haul secured the film third-place standing behind Mr. Peabody and Sherman ($21.2 million) and 300: Rise of an Empire ($19.1 million). The former enjoyed a solid hold from the previous weekend, dropping just 34 percent.  To compare, last year’s The Croods dropped 39 percent its second weekend in theatres, while How to Train Your Dragon also dipped 34 percent. Rise of an Empire took a fairly steep hit – suffering a downturn of 58 percent – but its overall cume remains respectable ($78.3 million to date).

With an “eh” CinemaScore rating of a B+, it looks as if Need for Speed will only continue to stall. Overall returns should tally out to south of $50 million. As for Tyler Perry’s Single Moms Club, it’s unlikely the film will even reach that benchmark. The prolific Perry suffered his worst opening yet with Club, which grossed $8.3 million. Prior to this weekend, Daddy’s Little Girls was Perry’s least-successful outing, having opened to $11.2 million in 2007.

Perry’s last few features (Tyler Perry Presents Peeples, A Madea Christmas) have also been disappointments. The films’ distributor, Lionsgate, has had a rough time of it recently: The company suffered losses on both The Legend of Hercules and I, Frankenstein as well. Let’s hope this weekend’s Divergent changes its luck for the better.

No such wishes are needed for Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which continues to do marvelous business. This past weekend saw the comedy rake in an additional $3.6 million from 66 locations. The film will enjoy its largest expansion yet this coming weekend, when it will screen in 275 theatres.

Despite some streaming troubles for those who opted to pay for a Web version of the film, Veronica Mars can be called a modest success. The movie earned $2 million from 291 locations. With the continued and concurrent availability of VOD, however, it will be interesting to see how the movie holds in the coming weeks.

Here’s hoping the weeks ahead are kinder to Jason Bateman’s Bad Words. The actor’s feature directorial debut hasn’t gotten off to a boffo start: The movie screened in six locations and grossed just $120,000. It will expand nationwide on Friday.

‘Need for Speed’ to cruise into 1st place

Disney is expecting modest returns in the low-to-mid $20 millions for videogame adaptation Need for Speed this weekend, but those earnings should still be enough to propel the Aaron Paul star vehicle (pun not intended, we promise) to first place. The film has received terrible reviews (23 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), not to mention, movies based on or inspired by videogames do not have a great track record of success (see: Max Payne, Doom). Nonetheless, the fanboy fan-base is a faithful one, and Aaron Paul, fresh off the final season of "Breaking Bad," will no doubt draw many fans in his own right.

Tyler Perry’s Single Moms Club also opens wide this weekend. However, it will probably not take second place, or even third place. Those slots should go to holdovers Mr. Peabody & Sherman and 300: Rise of an Empire. Both films are expected to gross in the high-teens, while Club is tracking a little softer, in the mid-teens. Incredibly, Single Moms Club will mark director Tyler Perry’s 15^th movie since 2006. Nine of those films debuted to $20 million or more, although most featured Perry’s Madea character or opened over Easter weekend. Club fits neither criterion.

TV cult favorite Veronica Mars finally hits the big screen today. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, in which fans raised over $5 million, Mars will screen in 291 locations and via VOD. If everyone who contributed to the Kickstarter fund opts to see the movie in theatres, Veronica Mars could earn upwards of $2 million.

Ahead of its wide release next weekend, Jason Bateman’s feature directorial debut Bad Words opens in six locations in NY and LA. It will probably not beat or even meet the record-breaking per-screen average Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel achieved last weekend, although it may still enjoy a solid opening. As for Hotel, the feature expands to 66 locations and will likely take in $2 million or so.

Crowdsourcing success: Veronica Mars movie raises over $2.5 million with Kickstarter

Kickstarter is starting to get really, really powerful. It's funded tons of indie movies and even (perhaps regrettably) Lindsay Lohan-led The Canyons. Now it's funded one of its most mainstream projects yet. With the support of "Veronica Mars" star Kristen Bell and the blessing of Warner Bros.' digital
division, the TV show's writer and executive producer, Rob Thomas, created a Kickstarter campaign to get a feature-film version made--although the studio has the final word, of course. That was yesterday. Today, the campaign has earned over $2.6 million--I'd give the specific number, but it's rising by the second. Did I mention that the goal of $2 million was met within 11 hours, and there's 29 days left in the campaign?

Film Journal's written before about how independent movie theatres have been using Kickstarter to help finance digital conversions. But it's pretty amazing that a mainstream network television show is using this method. While it seems exceptional at first, there have been some prominent TV shows that have recruited fans to bring them back. The most famous early example was "Family Guy," and a new season of "Arrested Development" is coming to Netflix soon after years of speculation that the series would have a second run somewhere.

So much has been said about how social media has turned opening weekend into opening day.  Word-of-mouth can destroy bad movies much quicker than they used to. As this Kickstarter campaign shows, it can also work in reverse. Good programs may be subject to cancellations by executives or declining ratings despite a rapt fan base. But those same fans can now actually have a say. In today's day-and-age, there's no way a cult show like "Twin Peaks" would be cancelled and gone forever. Here's to the Kickstarter campaign for "Veronica Mars," and fans having a vote in saying what movies will make them show up to theatres.