Weekend Estimates (pg31): The Martian 37 | HT2 20.3 | Pan 15.5 | Intern 8.66 | Sicario 7.35 | The Walk 3.65 | Steve Jobs 521k

[MovieMan89]

Les Mis, $148.8 million domestic, and an Oscar nomination say "hi." However, admittedly, that's about it.

Yeah though I'm sure Les Mis' gross had nothing to do with him. As for the Oscar, well...it was an extremely weak year for the lead actors. Without DDL it would have been an entirely forgettable category that year. In all honesty, Van Helsing is probably the most successful he's ever been at being a draw outside of Wolverine. 

[WrathOfHan]

WB's going to have a good year next year but that Tarzan/King Arthur one-two punch is just baffling. Even Sony would know better

I'm surprised they still haven't delayed King Arthur now that Star Trek and Ice Age are there.

[Fancyarcher]

Yeah though I'm sure Les Mis' gross had nothing to do with him. As for the Oscar, well...it was an extremely weak year for the lead actors. Without DDL it would have been an entirely forgettable category that year. In all honesty, Van Helsing is probably the most successful he's ever been at being a draw outside of Wolverine. 

 

Prisoners was pretty successful consider it's grim tone and lower budget, and Real Steel didn't do that bad worldwide either.

[Webslinger]

Yeah though I'm sure Les Mis' gross had nothing to do with him. As for the Oscar, well...it was an extremely weak year for the lead actors. Without DDL it would have been an entirely forgettable category that year. In all honesty, Van Helsing is probably the most successful he's ever been at being a draw outside of Wolverine. 

 

Really? Honestly, I feel that that category in that year is one of the Academy's best in recent memory (at least in regard to the pool of worthy work beyond the actual nominees; personally, I would match five-for-five with their Best Actor choices that year).

[Blankments]

Come on, it's well-made, well-acted...the problem is it's not special. At all. Were it not for Depp and the above-average directing the movie would've received very little attention. On the page it just doesn't stand out. It's a gangster movie that follows familiar gangster movie tropes. 

Cooper's direction is easily the weakest part of the film. Well... either that or Edgerton's phoned in performance

[tonytr87]

Cooper's direction is easily the weakest part of the film. Well... either that or Edgerton's phoned in performance

I disagree. His command of silence and use of tracking shots and slow dollies really sets a nice tone and makes everything happening feel more important than it actually is. Also, directing talent includes directing actors, and besides Edgerton the entire ensemble does good work.

That shot where the camera follows the gang as they drive to do a hit, passing guns to each other in silence as the city shadows pass over them? That's good directing.

Edited October 12, 2015 by tonytr87

[tonytr87]

 

The Martian has put up a great run so far. It's not as Earth-shattering as Gravity's performance two years ago, but it's still pretty damned impressive. Even with plenty of upcoming competition for adult audiences, it should still be able to cruise past $200 million behind the great word-of-mouth. In fact, if it holds well enough, it could outgross Ridley Scott's last three films combined.

 

Hotel Transylvania 2 has been even more impressive than its predecessor, which is no small feat. Goosebumps should put a dent in it next weekend, but it will still be able to capitalize on the two remaining weekends of October.

 

Pan bombed, which was inevitable from the minute that Warner Bros moved it out of the summer. Even if it had had a perfect release date, however, the premise was still limiting. Sure, Peter Pan has been done to death, but do we really need a convoluted, nonsensical origin story?

 

The Intern is holding up quite nicely.

 

Sicario held well considering how dark and potentially audience-alienating it is. Even though the film opened on a smaller scale, it's still worth noting that it held better than Villenue's previous wide release, Prisoners.

 

Maze Runner appears to be leveling out, but it's still in for a discouraging drop from its predecessor's gross last year.

 

As for The Walk... where to begin? It's definitely not Robert Zemeckis's best movie, but it's still sad to see such a well-crafted film that practically demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible bomb this hard. There are, of course, a large number of factors that go into the performance. The title is absolutely nondescript; the title of the documentary on the same event, Man on Wire, is much more attention-grabbing. The advertising understandably plays up the titular walk, but that scene - while amazing - covers just 17 minutes of a two-hour running time. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, while appreciated by mainstream audiences when he's in a big and well-marketed film, has yet to prove himself as a draw on his own (see: Premium Rush, Don Jon). Reports of nausea from some early crowds probably scared some viewers off. The Martian gobbled up much of the potential audience in each of the last two weekends. And as the final nail in the coffin, the IMAX-exclusive release was a disaster, and I think that the poor performance there soured some theatres against taking a chance on the film in its conventional release, or on giving it additional screen space (for example: the theatre where I saw it last weekend obviously kept it going in IMAX, but did not play it on any of the regular screens across the hall). But still, even with all these factors considered, it couldn't clear $4 million in its first weekend of wide release. It's a shame, and hopefully Zemeckis will rebound in a big way with whatever he does next.

 

Steve Jobs is off to a blistering start. I don't think we're looking at a blockbuster when it goes wide in two weeks, but it should do very well between the strength of the reviews, the Oscar buzz, and the public interest in Jobs himself, as indicated by the strong sales of the Isaacson biography.

 

 

It'll be interesting to see how Jobs performs. Apple has a cult-like following so you'd think people would turn out for it. 

[tonytr87]

Yeah though I'm sure Les Mis' gross had nothing to do with him. As for the Oscar, well...it was an extremely weak year for the lead actors. Without DDL it would have been an entirely forgettable category that year. In all honesty, Van Helsing is probably the most successful he's ever been at being a draw outside of Wolverine. 

 

 

[CJohn]

WB's going to have a good year next year but that Tarzan/King Arthur one-two punch is just baffling. Even Sony would know better

Tarzan is probably gonna do less than Pan.

[RichWS]

10:40 Saturday night Steve Jobs show was 80% full and considerably young. It's no Social Network, but a pretty damn great film in its own right. The script sings and Fassbender really is tremendous. Definitely the performance of the year so far. Would it have been great to see Fincher tackle it? Sure, but I'm glad Boyle did. Seeing a much different visual dynamic and tonal approach to Sorkin's words is exciting. I'd say it's an A-, not reaching the top grade only because of some my ending qualms.

[Jayhawk the Hutt]

Should see some great holds today, considering a lot of people (not me unfortunately) have the day off.

[RichWS]

Random Thoughts: 1. Feel bad for The Walk. It doesn't deserve this fate. Bad release date, poor opening strategy and a story that most people were, to be frank, just not interested in. 2. Glad to see Sicario hold up fairly well. Interested to see how it holds up next weekend with even more adult competition. 3. Saw The Martian for a second time on Friday night, this time in expendable but harmless 3D. With a packed house, it was fun to see how well it played with the audience. It's a great crowd pleaser. So easy to see why WOM is damn strong. I could see it finishing with 225m. 4. I'm still kinda interested in seeing Pan cause I'm fucked up like that. 5. I already feel bad for Crimson Peak.

[Dementeleus]

I was thinking about seeing THE WALK or something today.

 

On the other hand, four games of playoff baseball. Movies can wait until tomorrow.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Telemachos

[RichWS]

I was thinking about seeing THE WALK or something today.   On the other hand, four games of playoff baseball. Movies can wait until tomorrow.

GAME 3 >>> THE WALK

[RichWS]

You think Houston takes this today?

[Dementeleus]

GAME 3 >>> THE WALK

 

Utley goes deep. WWIII begins.

[DAR]

He is so getting a pitch buzzed by him

[dudalb]

Good thing they have...

Harry Potter...

To replace Harry Potter. Dire year WB. Even if you released the best movie of the year.

Guaranteed, if Warner's had known they would be making the Potter spin off,they would have been a lot slower to greenlight Pan.

 

Warner's year, if you look at it, has not been a disaster like Universal had a few years ago. They had one solid hit with San Andreas,and a number of their other,smaller films that made a modest profit. Problem is their high profile,expensive films(San Andreas excepted) either disappointed at the box office

("Fury Road",which will make a small profit,but you don't spend 150 Million to make a small profit) or out and out bombed( "Jupiter" and "Pan").

And the lack of a film from their DC franchise is notable.

I hope studios is will be more cautious about trying to get a franchise out of material that is just not good franchise material.

[dudalb]

WB's going to have a good year next year but that Tarzan/King Arthur one-two punch is just baffling. Even Sony would know better

 

I think Tarzan is a unknown quanity...they are going for a Indy Jones style adventure,which could work at the box office.(that the previious Tarzan films have failed should be balanced against anything will fail if not well done;pirate movies were considered poison unitl POTC came along),

King Arthur I have severe doubts about because I think that Guy Ritchie might be the wrong director for it.

[DAJK]

Tarzan will make Terminator 5 #'s domestically unless it ends up being really really good. And it's going to do 250MWW if not more. So if it really did cost in the range of 80-100M, it'll be fine.