Weekend Wrap-Up: 42 Hits a Solid Triple, Scary Movie 5 Suffers Beanball
April 15, 2013
42 earned an easy win at the box office, in part due to a better than expected performance, but also in part due to really weak competition. It did manage 16th place on the list of April openings and 20th best April weekend overall, which is worth celebrating. Scary Movie 5, on the other hand, struggled and only a low production budget will save it or the franchise. The overall box office was down 13% from last week to $117 million; however, that's 2% higher than the same weekend last year, so there's another reason to celebrate. Year-to-date, 2013 is still taking a beating and is off 2012's pace by 11% at $2.62 billion to $2.95 billion.
42 had the best ever opening for a baseball movie at $27.49 million. This tops the previous record-holder, The Benchwarmers. We no longer live in a world where The Benchwarmers have the record for biggest opening box office for a baseball movie. That's a third reason to celebrate. The film's internal multiplier, its reviews, and its target audience all suggest strong legs. Becoming at least a midlevel hit is practically guaranteed, while it will be interesting to see how well it holds up over the coming weeks.
As expected, Scary Movie 5 has the worst opening in the The Scary Movie franchise; however, it was even worse than expected at just $14.16 million. Given its reviews, there's little hope the word-of-mouth will help turn it around. That said, its reported production budget is in the $20 million to $25 million range, so it doesn't need to make too much to earn a profit. I'm not saying there will be a Scary Movie 6, but if this film does well internationally, you can't rule out that possibility.
The Croods remained in third place with $13.12 million, which was within a rounding error of predictions. Its four-week total reached $142.44 million and it should surpass $150 million by this time next week.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation earned fourth place with $10.89 million over the weekend, while its running tally rose to $102.52 million. It became only the fourth film of the year to reach $100 million. It won't be the last.
Evil Dead fell from first to fifth with $9.49 million. On the one hand, with good reviews, it should have performed better. On the other, horror remakes tend to collapse completely during their sophomore stint, so this isn't a bad result. With $41.53 million after just ten days of release, the film is on pace to breakeven during its initial push on the home market, or earlier if it can find an audience internationally.
The only sophomore film not in the top five was Jurassic Park. Its 3D re-release fell 52% to $8.86 million over the weekend. The film now has $31.97 million during its re-release and $382.29 million in total. This is likely enough to cover the conversion costs and if its release helped boost home market sales, it might already be profitable.
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Jurassic Park, The Croods, Evil Dead, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Scary Movie V, 42, Scary Movie