Weekend Box Office: 'Miss Peregrine' Beats 'Deepwater Horizon'
by EG
The top two movies at the box office this weekend performed pretty much as expected, but neither one could reasonably be considered to be a hit. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children came out on top of the weekend, with Mark Walhberg's Deepwater Horizon sliding to second place.
Tim Burton's Miss Peregrine took in about $28.5 million for the weekend. That's a bit ahead of the majority of predictions, which had the movie bringing in about $25 million. It's well behind, though, the most optimistic projections early in the week that suggested the film could hit $35 million or even more.
While Miss Peregrine's take is not bad for a September/October opening, it's less than both Sully and The Magnificent Seven, the month's last two number-one movies, made on their opening weekends. Both of of those movies managed to bring in about $35 million. Of the three films, Miss Peregrine has, by far, the largest production budget, and it will have to hope for a long, strong international performance to get its balance sheet in the black given its inability to break out big in the United States.
The based-on-a-true-story adventure film Deepwater Horizon came in exactly in line with expectations with a weekend gross of just over $20 million. The bad news is that the film cost about $120 million to make, and considering that it isn't playing particularly well internationally so far, it's likely to remain in negative financial territory.
Last week's number one, The Magnificent Seven, dropped off by about 55 percent this week, but it still placed a solid third with a weekend gross of $15.7 million. Last week's number two, the family film Storks, followed The Magnificent Seven just as it did last week, earning $13.8 million and placing fourth. Sully nailed down fifth place with $8.4 million.
Sixth place went to this week's third new wide release, Masterminds, a comedy starring Kristin Wiig and Jason Sudeikis. This one was expected to bring in less than $10 million, and it brought in way less, with a weekend gross of $6.6 million.
Further down the list, the new releases from two weeks ago - Bridget Joneses' Baby, Snowden, and Blair Witch - fell to ninth, tenth, and twelfth places, respectively. Of the three, only Bridget Jones has a total domestic gross in excess of $20 million at this point.
Overall, the weekend was weak, with all films currently in theaters taking in a total of $114 million. That's marginally better than last weekend, but it pales in comparison to the same weekend last year, when The Martian debuted to $54 million. In fact, on this weekend in 2014, both Gone Girl and Annabelle took in $37 million, and in 2013, Gravity opened with $55 million. History suggests that audiences are more than willing to come out to theaters this time of year if they're excited about a film (or films), and that Miss Peregrine and Deepwater Horizon can't blame their weak showings on the season.
The box office probably isn't going to be set on fire next week, either, as the crop of new releases doesn't look any more likely than this week's to produce a big hit. The new film most likely to take the crown next week is The Girl on the Train; it's the kind of dark thriller that can sometimes score with audiences, but this one so far has been compared unfavorably to Gone Girl, a story with which it shares some crucial plot points.
Also new next week will be The Birth of a Nation, an historical drama about the Civi War. This one is generating Oscar buzz, but it's not likely to catch or keep the attention of mass audiences.
The week's final new wide release, Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life, is aimed at young audiences and is most likely to draw moviegoers away from Miss Peregrine. It probably won't draw very many moviegoers away, though, and it's unlikely to gross even $10 million.
Early projections have both The Girl on the Train and The Birth of a Nation earning somewhere in the vicinity of $20 million, which would be enough to surpass both Miss Peregrine and Deepwater Horizon in their second weekends.