"Prisoners" Takes the Top Weekend Spot

[JamesG]

Weekend Report: Prisoners Kidnaps Top Spot on Slow Fall Weekend
by Ray Subers
September 22, 2013


In spite of its difficult subject material, kidnapping drama Prisoners easily took first place at the box office this weekend. Meanwhile, 3D dance movie Battle of the Year tanked.

The Top 12 earned an estimated $75.5 million, which makes this one of the slowest weekend yet this year. Still, this is typically a quiet time at the box office, and this haul is about on par with the same weekend last year.







Prisoners opened to an estimated $21.4 million from 3,260 locations this weekend. That's in the same general range as Warner Bros. similarly-timed dramas The Town ($23.8 million), Contagion ($22.4 million) and Argo ($19.5 million).

WB clearly recognizes that there's a market for adult-oriented movies at this time of year—the audience for Prisoners was 72 percent over the age of 25.



The release date wouldn't have mattered much, though, if Prisoners didn't look appealing, which was a huge possibility given the movie's heavy story and bleak visual palette. Instead of shying away from the story, though, the marketing made it clear that this was a high-stakes race against time to find two missing girls.

The very primal fear of having your children taken away is clearly something many parents can relate to, and the marketing made sure to put the desperate father (played by Hugh Jackman) front-and-center.

It also helps that there was clear ambiguity as to what happened to the girls, and the opportunity to try to solve the "whodunit" mystery is an appealing one.



Aside from skewing older, exit polling also showed that the audience was pretty evenly split between men (48 percent) and women (52 percent). Audiences polled on Friday gave it a "B+" CinemaScore, though that improved to an "A-" on Saturday.

The real story for Prisoners is how it holds up in the long-run. It has good word-of-mouth, though it also faces tough competition in early October. Based on other similar movies at this time, it's likely that Prisoners winds up with between $70 and $80 million, though it's possible that it goes a bit higher.







Coming off one of the best weekends ever in the month of September, horror sequel Insidious Chapter 2 plummeted 64 percent to an estimated $14.5 million.

For the horror genre, that fall isn't terrible, though it still guarantees that Insidious Chapter 2 won't wind up anywhere near director James Wan's July hit The Conjuring ($136 million and counting).

To date, Insidious Chapter 2 has earned $60.9 million, which is more than the first Insidious made in its entire run.







In third place, Luc Besson's The Family fell 50 percent to an estimated $7 million.

Through 10 days, the action comedy has grossed a fine $25.6 million.







Despite only adding 45 theaters, Spanish-language family comedy Instructions Not Included remarkably increased 17 percent to $5.7 million this weekend.

So far, the surprise hit has earned $34.3 million, which ranks fifth all-time for a foreign language movie. By next weekend, it will pass Pan's Labyrinth ($37.6 million) to claim fourth place.







Opening at 2,008 theaters, 3D dance movie Battle of the Year rounded out the Top Five with a terrible $5 million. That's one of the lowest openings ever for a dance movie: it's less than half of last year's Step Up Revolution, and it's also below legendary flop Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights ($5.8 million).

A handful of factors combined to take Battle of the Year out of the running this weekend, the biggest of which is the fact that the dance movie craze peaked at least five ago. Also, the movie lacked star power—while Chris Brown does have over 13 million Twitter followers, that's mostly for his music (and, of course, his well-documented behavior issues).

Sony seemed to recognize that the movie didn't have a ton of potential, and as a result the marketing campaign was fairly light.



The audience was 60 percent female and 55 percent were 21 years of age and older. They gave it a very good "A-" CinemaScore; in comparison, it's only scoring six percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Still, it's unlikely that this hangs out in theaters very long, and a final total somewhere between $10 and $15 million is likely.







Playing at 318 IMAX locations this weekend, the 3D re-release of 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz took ninth place with $3.02 million.

That's way above previous 3D re-release Top Gun 3D ($1.97 million), and also above last September's IMAX re-release of Raiders of the Lost Ark ($1.67 million).







Sex addition comedy Thanks for Sharing opened to an estimated $608,000 from 269 theaters. That's a bit less than Roadside Attractions' Girl Most Likely, which debuted to $694,447 a few months ago (though it was playing at 82 additional theaters).

With middling reviews, it's likely that Thanks for Sharing also falls off pretty quickly and ends up with less than $2 million total.







Playing at four theaters in New York and Los Angeles, Enough Said earned an estimated $240,000 this weekend. That translate to an average of $60,000, which is a major improvement over writer/director Nicole Holofcener's last movie, Please Give ($23,625).

The fact that this features one of James Gandolfini's final performances likely had a positive influence; Fox Searchlight is aggressively expanding the well-reviewed movie in to between 180 and 220 theaters next weekend.







Ahead of its nationwide debut next weekend, Ron Howard's Rush opened at five locations in New York and Los Angeles and grossed an estimated $200,000.

A $40,000 per-theater average is fine, though considering the strong reviews (around 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and Howard's pedigree it probably should have done a bit more.

Ultimately, the real story here is how the movie performs when it expands in to 2,200 theaters next weekend.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3732&p=.htm









September 20-22, 2013 Weekend Studio Estimates:


1. Prisoners $21,430,000
2. Insidious Chapter 2 $14,500,000 / $60,855,000
3. The Family $7,000,000 / $25,641,000
4. Instructions Not Included $5,700,000 / $34,262,000
5. Battle of the Year $5,000,000
6. We're the Millers $4,670,000 / $138,176,000
7. Lee Daniel's The Butler $4,304,000 / $106,452,000
8. Riddick $3,672,000 / $37,180,000
9. The Wizard of Oz (3D/IMAX) $3,022,000
10. Planes $2,861,000 / $86,543,000

[isiahthomas]

Wow i'm impressed that The Butler has made $106 million. I saw Prisoners today and it was boring and too long. It's 2 hours 33 minutes. The ending was a surprise. I love Maria Bello. She was Hugh Jackman's wife. Terrence Howard and Viola Davis were also a married couple in this and they're good actors. Isn't Rose Byrne in Insidious Chapter 2? Rose Byrne is hot. She was Bradley Cooper's wife in The Place Beyond The Pines and I saw her in The Tenants with rapper Snoop Dogg and Dylan McDermott.

[JamesG]

I heard great things about it. I def. plan on seeing it.

[isiahthomas]

Don't waste your time with Prisoners JamesG. It's really boring.

[JamesG]

I've seen Prisoners and I liked it. I wasn't "blown away" by it as some people said they were, but it was good.