Box Office Weekend 6/22 - JERSEY BOYS "Tanking"

[AndyDursin]

What a great idea -- take a top Broadway musical, drop most of the songs, fill it with R-rated language, and watch it bomb in the summer time. lol

Pairing Clint Eastwood with this material reminds me of watching John Huston flail making the ANNIE movie. Just out of their element...

Without any significant uptick in what has been lousy tracking, Clint Eastwood’s R-rated Jersey Boys (Warner Bros – 3,000+ theaters) looks to make only $14M this weekend and place no better than 4th for a cost around $40M. I hear the studio wanted the summer release, not Clint, who made more of a drama than a musical. (Might have had more traction in the Fall?) What’s interesting is that it’s the first Clint Eastwood film to get a test screening in a long time. Unfortunately the knocks against the pic are that it’s slow, lacked a musical background (seriously), and didn’t come alive until the last 15 minutes including credits. Biggest mistake might have been not using more artists’ music to set the feel for the time period. Don’t feel badly for Clint, however: word is American Sniper was a tough and demanding shoot for him but looks good. He plans to take a year off from filmmaking afterwards.

http://nikkifinke.com/box-office-previe ... t-topping/

[Mike Skerritt]

This is just an observation and not really a comment, but the man is 84 years old. It's just stunning to me that he's still making any films, let alone so many major productions in such varied genres.

[AndyDursin]

Don't get me wrong either...I love Clint. Some of his more contemporary films are a bit leisurely but there's no way I'm not in awe of what the guy is still doing. I do question him working on something like this though

[AndyDursin]

Richard Attenborough with A CHORUS LINE and John Huston with ANNIE also come to mind as misfired musicals with veteran directors being out of their element making them.

[AndyDursin]

Looks like TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 is continuing Dreamworks' fade with kids at the box-office...

#HowToTrainYourDragon2 drops 59% FRI-to-FRI despite no new kidpics w/ $7.6M. Wknd may fall 50% to $25M. $95M after SUN.

[Monterey Jack]

Looks like TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 is continuing Dreamworks' fade with kids at the box-office...

#HowToTrainYourDragon2 drops 59% FRI-to-FRI despite no new kidpics w/ $7.6M. Wknd may fall 50% to $25M. $95M after SUN.

It's really odd how much Dragon 2 is underperforming, considering that audiences and critics loved the first one and reviews for the second are unanimously glowing. Last summer, Despicable Me 2 took in over $400 million in the U.S. alone, and that's a much more slapdash sequel and it had direct competition from Monsters University. Is the tone too serious for tykes? Does it not have enough pop-culture references and poop jokes? Has the Dragons animated TV series made this theatrical sequel less of an "event"? I loved the film, so it's sad to see it likely to not top $200 million in the U.S.

[AndyDursin]

As we said before, the DM brand has become a phenomenon around the world -- the sequel did nearly $1 billion in revenue, eclipsed only by FROZEN. Kids love the characters, the soundtrack by Pharrell has become massively popular, and I'm not sure something like DRAGON is a good point of comparison, because it doesn't have those elements going for it. The bigger deal is that there's probably a ceiling on a comparatively more serious/action oriented type of thing that interests boys more than girls.

But I think you are right -- putting comparisons aside -- if this movie is underperforming, with no competition out there, then the question is why. The recent DW movies have all kind of underperformed like RIO 2 and MR PEABODY (and TURBO outright tanked). Only THE CROODS (which made more money than DRAGON 1) has really been big for them lately.

Is it just market-saturation with too many of these films in general being released? The animated TV show isn't very good and has "devalued" the brand? (I wouldn't have any idea)

It is surprising it's just going OK when the original managed to do $200 mil -- and it opened in March. Everybody's out of school by this point, and it's not taking off, so it's strange. Maybe kids just aren't into it.

Or perhaps the original was just a one-time phenomenon and didn't lend itself to sequel/franchising?

[AndyDursin]

Numbers. Good hold for 22 JUMP STREET and EDGE OF TOMORROW hanging in there after a "meh" type of start.

1 N Think Like a Man Too SGem $30,000,000 - 2,225 - $13,483 $30,000,000 $24 1
2 1 22 Jump Street Sony $29,000,000 -49.2% 3,306 - $8,772 $111,450,000 $50 2
3 2 How to Train Your Dragon 2 Fox $25,300,000 -48.8% 4,268 +15 $5,928 $95,177,000 $145 2
4 N Jersey Boys WB $13,515,000 - 2,905 - $4,652 $13,515,000 $40 1
5 3 Maleficent BV $13,012,000 -29.7% 3,450 -173 $3,772 $185,980,000 $180 4
6 4 Edge of Tomorrow WB $10,340,000 -37.4% 3,212 -293 $3,219 $74,511,000 $178 3

7 5 The Fault in our Stars Fox $8,600,000 -41.9% 3,340 +67 $2,575 $98,728,000 $12 3
8 6 X-Men: Days of Future Past Fox $6,200,000 -36.8% 2,681 -361 $2,313 $216,794,000 $200 5
9 10 Chef ORF $1,845,000 -15.7% 961 -141 $1,920 $16,942,000 - 7
10 7 Godzilla (2014) WB $1,820,000 -45.0% 1,365 -723 $1,333 $194,915,000 $160 6
11 8 A Million Ways to Die in the West Uni. $1,622,000 -50.0% 1,417 -996 $1,145 $40,324,000 $40 4
12 9 Neighbors Uni. $1,369,000 -42.2% 1,033 -863 $1,325 $145,717,000 $18 7
13 11 Blended WB $1,075,000 -38.2% 842 -739 $1,277 $42,426,000 $40 5
14 12 The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Sony $600,000 -37.1% 434 -248 $1,382 $199,477,000 - 8

Interesting Twitter tidbits from Gitesh Pandaya this morning:

-#Edge of Tomorrow now likely to be Tom Cruise's 1st $100M hit in lead role outside of Mission Impossible series in 9 yrs.

-#Godzilla on track to reach $200M domestic. But has still sold far fewer tix than 1998 pic. About 25% less. Intl growth will help.

-#DaysOfFuturePast has become 2nd highest grossing #XMen film domestic w/ $216.8M. Will challenge LastStand's $234.4M.

-Big $20.3M China opening wknd for #Maleficent shoots global gross up to $521.6M. Jolie's biggest live-action film ever.

-Mild $13.5M opening wknd for #JerseyBoys. Talk about an older skewing film - 71% of aud was over 50.

-Among DWA summer toon sequels, Dragon2 dropping more like Panda2 than Madagascar3. 2nd wknd declines: 49/50/44.