Reports claim that moviegoing was down in the first Quarter on 2013, but this weekend might signal a better Q2. Both a remake and a re-release opened strongly and defied the downward box office trend.
The non-comedic torture porn remake of ‘Evil Dead‘ surprisingly terrorized the box office. Its $26 million opening landed in first place. I give all the credit to the cult following of the classic films, and believe that the remake’s legs won’t be too long. However, when you take its modest $17 million budget into consideration, it’s certain to get a sequel or two.
Weekend predictions show that ‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation‘ and ‘The Croods‘ tied for second place with $21.1 million. We’ll have to wait until the actuals are announced later today to find out which film landed in which place.
‘Jurassic Park 3D‘ opened in fourth place with $18.2 million. Of that total, $6 million came from IMAX 3D showings. The 32% win is a new high for IMAX. It’s estimated that the 3D conversion process only cost $10 million, so the 20th Anniversary re-release has already paid off for Spielberg’s proven-to-be timeless classic.
‘Tyler Perry’s Temptation‘ was expected to round out the Top 5, but due to a low 29% drop-off in its third weekend, ‘Olympus Has Fallen‘ seized fifth place instead. In 17 days, ‘Olympus’ has matched its $70 million budget. ‘Temptation’ pulled in another $10 million, placing its 10-day total around $38 million. Compared to the $19.6 million 10-day total of eighth place ‘The Host‘, Tyler Perry is once again killing it.
The five-screen opening of Robert Redford’s ‘The Company You Keep‘ was good, but not quite as good as that of the four-screen debut for Danny Boyle’s ‘Trance‘. The $146,000 opening for ‘Company’ came to a $29,200 per-screen average, and the $136,000 debut for ‘Trance’ equated to a $34,000 per-screen average. While ‘Trance’ will expand to more than 375 locations this weekend, Sony Pictures Classics has not yet announced expansion plans for Redford’s film.
Top 10:
1. ‘Evil Dead’ (TriStar) – $26,000,000
2. ‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Paramount) – $21,100,000
2. ‘The Croods’ (Fox) – $21,100,000
4. ‘Jurassic Park 3D’ (Universal) – $18,247,000
5. ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ (FilmDistrict) – $10,042,000
6. ‘Tyler Perry’s Temptation’ (Lionsgate) – $10,000,000
7. ‘Oz: The Great and Powerful’ (Buena Vista) – $8,171,000
8. ‘The Host’ (Open Road) – $5,239,000
9. ‘The Call’ (TriStar) – $3,500,000
10. ‘Admission’ (Focus) – $2,054,000
