Boo 2! A Madea Halloween

Weekend Box Office: Scared Stupid

With five wide release movies fighting for your cost of admission, it’s no surprise that none of them were big hits. One had an okay opening while the other four bombed. To be fair, none of them were marketed very well, which is another big factor in their failures.

The best of the underperformers landed in the top spot thanks to decent returns and little notable competition. ‘Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween‘ may be the #1 movie in North America, but it opened $7 million behind the first of Perry’s ‘Boo’ movies, which opened just one year ago. From 2,388 locations, the movie grossed $21.6 million. With a production budget of $25 million, which is 25% bigger than the first, and an opening 25% below the first, this isn’t exactly a step in the right direction. Predicted to debut around the $50 million mark, ‘Boo 2’ reinforces the negative trend we spotted in Perry’s movies prior to the unexpected success of last year’s ‘Madea Halloween’.

Gerard Butler’s career has largely consisted of roles in so-bad-they’re-good movies, but now his movies are missing the good part. Warner Bros. gave the CG-laden ‘Geostorm‘ a whopping $120 million production budget, but hardly anyone turned out to see it. While it landed in second place, having debuted to only $13.3 million, that’s no feat. The overly-serious, character-free marketing campaign certainly didn’t help. The foreign box office has been rescuing domestic flops for years, but that won’t be the case with ‘Geostorm’. From 50 markets, the movie made $49.6 million over the last ten days, which won’t be good enough. It’s a disaster flick indeed.

Blumhouse’s teen-friendly horror movie ‘Happy Death Day‘ surprised us last week, but fell a mighty 64% this weekend. Despite that, it still finished in third place. With a $4.8 million production budget, a $40.6 million ten-day total and $12.9 million in international ticket sales, it’s already a massive success.

The third week of ‘Blade Runner 2049‘ was, once again, rough. Declining another 54%, it came in fourth with $7.1 million. The $150 million film has earned $74 million domestically and $120.1 million overseas over the last 17 days. Its $194.1 million worldwide returns will cover its production costs, but are not (and won’t be) high enough to recoup marketing costs too. Fans of the sci-fi sequel will need to help Sony and Warner Bros. with that when it becomes available to purchase at home.

The true story firefighting drama ‘Only the Brave‘ rounded out the Top 5. The well-reviewed picture made $6 million, which is low for a $38 million film. Speaking as a fan of it, I hope its upcoming international release is a success.

Considering its budget and debut numbers, Universal’s detective thriller ‘The Snowman‘ was the biggest of the weekend’s flops. The $35 million picture opened to $3.4 million, just enough to land in the #8 spot. Playing on 1,812 screens, that equates to a piddly $1,900 per-screen average. The film’s foreign box office has yielded $19.2 million over the last ten days, giving it a worldwide total of $22.6 million, which isn’t up to snuff.

Paramount/PureFlix’s long-delayed ‘Same Kind of Different as Me‘ performed almost identically (in terms of per-screen average) to ‘The Snowman’, but likely came with a lower price tag. Playing on 1,362 screens, the heavy-hearted feel-good drama opened at #12 with $2.5 million.

Top 10:

1. ‘Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween’ (Lionsgate) – $21,650,000

2. ‘Geostorm’ (Warner Bros.) – $13,300,000

3. ‘Happy Death Day’ (Universal) – $9,375,000

4. ‘Blade Runner 2049’ (Warner Bros.) – $7,155,000

5. ‘Only the Brave’ (Sony) – $6,010,000

6. ‘The Foreigner’ (STX) – $5,450,000

7. ‘It’ (Warner Bros.) – $3,500,000

8. ‘The Snowman’ (Universal) – $3,442,000

9. ‘American Made’ (Universal) – $3,162,000

10. ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ (Fox) – $3,000,000

8 comments

  1. ‘Blade Runner 2049’ has still to open in China and Japan. I wonder if that will turn its fortunes. The original is super popular in Japan, so perhaps, just perhaps it might turn a theatrical profit. Here’s hoping …

    • I don’t think Japan is a big enough market to make up for the huge money loss this movie has incurred for its studios. And I’m not sure whether the original film is well known or liked in China.

      • Probably not well known in China. But bigger miracles have happened. Who would have thought Chinese audiences would eat up Terminator 5, Transformers 4 and The Fate of the Furious?

          • Hm, darn, you’re right. Then again, me and my friends are big fans, and we’re no Americans. But I get your point, there’s a huge cultural difference between ‘America and China’, whereas ‘America and Europe’ are very close.

          • Josh’s theory confirmed. ‘Geostorm’ did gangbusters business in China, whereas ‘Blade Runner 2049’ flopped 🙁
            Luckily, Blade Runner 2049 DID open as #1 in Japan – where the original was very popular.

  2. theHDphantom

    Wow. I had no idea that “Boo 2! A Madea Halloween” was getting released, let alone even being made. There’s been zero advertisements for it on TV here in Canada.

    I had a feeling that “Geostorm” and “The Snowman” were gonna flop big. Seeing the ads on TV for them, you didn’t even know what the hell Geostorm was and The Snowman looked like a generic cat and mouse crime story with a bad, Christmasy title. I’d hate to be the guy in charge of marketing right now having to answer to the studios….

  3. William Henley

    Those numbers are not bad for Tyler Perry’s movie. Granted, its lower than the last movie, and had a higher budget, but the opening weekend returns are not far behind the budget. This will probably still give the studio a nice ROI, and probably greenlight another movie

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *