'House with a Clock' Wins the Weekend
by EG
The first weekend of autumn was fairly quiet at theaters, with most new movies doing disappointing business. The House with a Clock in Its Walls, however, didn't decent business and came out on top. Read on for details.
A trio of high-profile fall festival films opening nationwide got iced at the weekend box office — Michael Moore's new documentary Fahrenheit 11/9, the edgy teen black comedy Assassination Nation and Dan Fogelman's Life Itself.
The only new movie to do impressive business was a more commercial, Hollywood studio title: Eli Roth's big-screen adaptation of the beloved kids book The House With a Clock in Its Walls. The family-friendly pic, starring Jack Black and Cate Blanchett, debuted to a better-than-expected $26.9 million from 3,592 theaters, easily topping the chart.
From Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and distributed by Universal, the pre-Halloween offering follows a young orphan (Owen Vacarro) who goes to live in his uncle's spooky house, which has a mind of its own. Blanchett plays a witch who lives next door. Overseas, House With a Clock launched to $8.7 million from a smattering of offshore markets for a global start of $35.6 million.
"Our late September date was engineered for the kids and family audience as back-to-school activities start to wind down and moviegoing picks up — if you can deliver the goods," says Jim Orr, Universal's president of domestic distribution, adding that Roth, Blanchett and Black made for a potent combination.
Adds Amblin president and co-CEO Jeff Small, "We fell under the spell of this movie from the moment it was pitched to us and it's clear audiences this weekend have been enchanted as well."
Fahrenheit 11/9 limped to an eighth-place finish in North America with $3.1 million from 1,719 theaters. Prerelease tracking had suggested at least $5 million to $6 million. Moore's satirical anti-Trump film marks the first release from Tom Ortenberg's new company, Briarcliff. (Ortenberg worked with Moore on Fahrenheit 9/11 while stationed at Lionsgate.)
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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