The Social Network Scores, Four Horror Films Crumble, and Holdovers Remain Steady: Weekend Box Office 10/03/10

It was good news for one major release and bad news for pretty much everything else. The much hyped and critically-acclaimed 'founding of Facebook' drama The Social Network debuted in number one this weekend with a strong $23 million three-day take. Predictions were all over the map for this one, with pundits guessing anywhere from $15 to $30 million. As usual, taking the average prediction usually gets you the right answer. Regardless of the breathless hype and relentless free media coverage, $23 million is pretty terrific for a two-hour adult drama with no genuine movie stars and a director (David Fincher) and writer (Aaron Sorkin) who are only known by name among the film nerds and the industry.

This is the kind of completely entertaining (if not culturally-defining or anything of that nature) film that makes movie stars. Jesse Eisenberg now has a 'serious' hit to go along with his pop-art success Zombieland (which opened with $24 million this weekend last year). This is major mainstream exposure for Andrew Garfield, who now stars in the little-seen Never Let Me Go (current gross: $726,000) and will soon be featured as the new Peter Parker in Sony's 3D Spider-Man reboot. Rooney Mara has two of the best scenes in the film (and is the film's strongest defense against charges of sexism), and she used those two scenes in order to get cast in director David Fincher's next project, the high-profile remake of The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo. And if Justin Timberlake wasn't already one of the more famous entertainers on the planet, his scene-stealing supporting turn would instantly turn him into a bankable character-actor.

As somewhat expected, the film played much better in the big cities than it did in the rest of the country. Where it goes from here is an open question. The film scored a solid 'B+' from Cinemascore, and Sony was able to keep the project's budget at around $40 million. The film played like a general-audiences hit, as the film had a solid 2.87x weekend multiplier (it actually went up about 14% on Saturday). The picture is being set up as a major Oscar contender, so expect to see a certain amount of backlash in the coming weeks as the 'it wasn't that great, thus it was bad' crowd chimes in, as well as the 'it's not a true portrait of the the people it portrays' camp. The big challenge at this point is selling the film to middle America, where the idea of watching an amoral Ivy-league kid invent a something that makes him into a billionaire might not be the easiest sell. Sony is already on the right track, with TV spots that sell the movie not as 'the defining movie of our generation' (HA!), but as a witty and fun-filled look at a token moment in recent history. The film is already on tap to be a hit thanks to the low budget, but the final domestic gross (IE - over/under $100 million) is now about whether it's the front runner for Best Picture or merely one of the ten nominees.

For some inexplicable reason, there were four (!) horror films opening in wide and limited release this weekend. And, alas, every single one of them tanked pretty hard. The highest-grossing of the four was actually a studio dump, as Paramount finally released the four-year old Case 39, filmed back when Renee Zellweger was bankable and Bradley Cooper had just come off of The Wedding Crashers. The film cost only $26 million, and it had already racked up around $15 million in overseas grosses, so the $5.35 million weekend was basically a bit of gravy before the DVD release. The best new film of the weekend, Let Me In, failed to capitalize on its positive reviews or its moody ad campaign, as the Overture release ended up with just $5.3 million. The film only cost $20 million, so the damage is more about Overture's return after a nearly year-long sabbatical (they were taken over by Relativity back in July) than the film itself. Sad to say, but it would seem that (financially speaking) Overture may have been better off making the kind of Let the Right One In remake that everyone feared in the first place (think a reverse-gender Twilight rip-off). This was always going to be a hard sell, as the film is a remake of an arthouse film that plays as arty as the original, and fans of the original either refused to go on principal or couldn't quite stomach paying $10 for a remake of a film they could watch again at home.

The other two horror films were limited releases. Chain Letter went out semi-wide on 406 screens and earned a pathetic $143,000 ($352 per screen). Of more importance was the lousy debut of Dark Sky's Hatchet II. The film may be garbage (I wasn't much of a fan of the original Hatchet), but a solid showing for an unrated horror film in a major theater chain (AMC) could have opened the flood gates for unrated director's cuts of documentaries, horror films, and adult dramas to play in semi-wide theatrical release. This was the first time in decades that an unrated horror film played in major theater chains (it went onto 68 AMC screens), but the $912 per screen average will not encourage this kind of promising release strategy. In other limited-release news,Waiting For "Superman" scored around $407,000 on 34 screens for an $11,000+ per-screen average. Still, unless a wider expansion really breaks this one out, the 'education system-in crisis' documentary is fated to be one of those movies that is more talked about than actually viewed. The 'not really a thriller' documentary Catfish is doing okay in wider release, as it grossed $600,000 for the weekend for a current total of $1.6 million on 137 screens thus far.

In other holdover news, Legends of the Guardians held well, dropping just 32% for a ten-day total of $30 million. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps lost 46% in weekend two, owing to competition from The Social Network and the feeling that the picture wasn't all that relevant or impressive. It's new ten-day total is $35 million. The Town and Easy A (starring the alleged new Mary Jane Watson) fell about 35% each, as the popular studio pictures continue to hold their own against the newbies. The respective totals are $64 million for The Town and $42 million for Easy A (the latter is easily the best teen comedy since Mean Girls). Last weekend's rom-com disappointment You Again also dropped 35%, as the $20 million ensemble comedy should reach $20 million by next weekend. Devil has now grossed $27 million, making it a solid hit on a dirt-cheap budget. Lastly, the shockingly good Despicable Me (finally saw it in second-run last weekend) has crossed $246 million domestic, which makes it the tenth-biggest grossing cartoon of all-time.

That's it for this weekend. Join us next weekend when the Diane Lane horse-racing period piece Secretariat squares off against the Katherine Heigl/Josh Duhamel rom-com Life As We Know It. On the horror film front, we have the limited release of the surprisingly well-reviewed remake of I Spit On Your Grave, the wide release of Lionsgate's Buried, and the debut weekend of the Wes Craven effort My Soul To Take (it's been delayed for nearly two years, it's been converted to 3D, and Craven dashed back into the Scream franchise upon completion -- you do the math). Until then, take care.

Scott Mendelson

 

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Comments

[BerkeleyHills]

02:26 AM on 10/05/2010

Nice post. Gotta disagree on LET THE RIGHT ONE IN though. The druids at Skywalker Sound could not do enough in post to save it. My GOD every trick in the book and it was still a snorer! The Finnish original is a recognized masterpiece. The new one... Heroic efforts by the, mostly, miscast cast could not begin to help a director who "Did Not Get It" and was in way way in over his head. And the credits went on and on like a modern version of BEN HUR. Do we really need three hundred people to make a cheapo horror film in New Mexico? C'mon home and work with the grown-ups again guys. All is forgiven.

[dougster]

12:12 AM on 10/05/2010

There was absolutely no point in remaking "Let the Right One In," as there was no point in remaking "The Vanishing." The only way to go, in both cases, was down.

[stew66]

04:22 PM on 10/04/2010

Let the Right One In is one of my favorite, art house movies of the past few years (which may say more about me than the film), but even I have no interest in paying $10 to see the remake. Looks like it will be available from Netflix pretty soon.

[Joel Schwartzberg]

02:41 PM on 10/04/2010

Best Movie of the Year so far (for me, anyway): "Let Me In". I haven;t seen the original yet, but a comparison shouldn't be the basis for a review. On it's own it was incredibly well-acted, well-written, well-directed. A beautiful, horrific movie. I help word-of-mouth gives it strong staying power. A more compelling title would probably help sales, but making them teens instead of kids would have killed the movie. It's a MUST SEE, folks.

[SteveSFM]

02:51 PM on 10/04/2010

What he said. It's an excellent movie that deserves an audience.

[satanlite]

03:36 PM on 10/04/2010

The original "Let the Right One In" is superb but I can see where it would not be appreciated by the bulk of Americans. It's a little too creepy for mainstream. I highly suggest it.

As for remakes, I'll wait for Netflix if I bother with it at all. Usually remakes made for American audiences depress me and insult me and leave me feeling empty and pitying the American film audience, or at least the audience Hollywood sells their highly manufactured wares to.

[rjmiller]

01:33 PM on 10/04/2010

Just wondering, did you feel like Despicable Me was essentially a bunch of Venture Bros jokes? Like a "What if the Monarch adopted children?" episode?

[satanlite]

04:57 PM on 10/04/2010

Venture Bros. is SO under appreciated.

[CAMBEL]

01:01 PM on 10/04/2010

I saw the origional "Let the Right one In" and so was hesitent about seeing the American remake. I have to say, I thought it was excellent. They preserved the creep factor and somewhat slow build of the origional, but I have to say, the two lead actors they cast were outstanding. They really channeled the fear, sadness, excitement etc.. in a way that I am not used to seeing child actors do. Fans of the Sweedish film really should give it a look.

[shout]

12:29 PM on 10/04/2010

A strong $23 million for a 3 day take? For a completely over-hyped movie? Are you kidding? By that calculation, The Bounty Hunter should be considered a hit, not a flop. It opened with $21 million and was made for the same amount of money spent on the Social Network. And it got some of the worst reviews of the year, not the breathless media coverage bestowed upon The Social Network.

[cookmeyer1970]

02:23 PM on 10/04/2010

Except The Bounty Hunter was not anywhere close to being loved by critics or an Oscar contender. Seeing that its rating at Rotten Tomatoes was 7%, it was inevitable that its opening box office take was as good as it was going to get. It's practically guaranteed that The Social Network (at 97% on the tomato meter) will hold well in the weeks to come given its critical reception and fairly strong CinemaScore, and it will continue to make money should it eventually get an Oscar nom. Besides that, it's all about expectations. A rom com starring a known quantity such as Jennifer Aniston was expected to perform better than an adult, dialogue-driven drama with no certified stars.

[SteveSFM]

02:53 PM on 10/04/2010

For a "serious", awards-worthy movie, $23M is very good.

And the movie lives up to the hype.

[FIGI]

11:37 AM on 10/04/2010

Hey Hollywood, we're just not that into you.

[CAMBEL]

01:01 PM on 10/04/2010

LOL!