THEATERS SPOOKED BY HALLOWEEN
November 3, 2014 by admin · Leave a Comment
Many box office analysts had predicted that on Halloween many theater seats would be reserved for ghosts, but few anticipated the haunting emptiness of most venues. Business was down 25 percent from the same weekend a year ago (when Halloween preceded it on Thursday). The pundits had optimistically forecast that Nightcrawler would wind up on top with around $15-20 million. Instead, the well-reviewed film earned just $10.9 million — about the same as the second week of Ouija, which sold most of its tickets on Friday night — Halloween. And despite those glowing reviews for Nightcrawler, moviegoers who opted to see it on Friday gave it a mediocre B- CinemaScore, suggesting it would not be helped by word-of-mouth. (Variety reported early on Monday that final figures will show Ouija repeating as No. 1.) Estimated receipts for the next four films on Rentrak’s list of top earners were so close that their positions could be scrambled when final results are disclosed later today (Monday). (Estimates are based on actual ticket sales on Friday and Saturday and an "educated guess" for receipts on Sunday.) Moviegoers had little interest in celebrating the tenth anniversary of Saw. Screened in 2,063 theaters, the movie earned just $650,000, half of it on Friday. That amounts to just $315 per theater for the weekend. On Sunday, according to studio Lionsgate’s own estimates, it earned just $51 per theater for all screenings during the day combined, suggesting that at most of them, the theaters were completely empty.
The top ten films for the weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by Rentrak:
1. Nightcrawler, $10.91 million; 2. Ouija, $10.90 million; 3. Fury, $9.1 million; 4. Gone Girl, $8.8 million; 5. The Book of Life, $8.3 million; 6. John Wick, $8.05 million; 7. St. Vincent, $7.75 million; 8. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, $6.48 million; 9. The Judge, $3.4 million; 10. Dracula Untold, $2.9 million.
FINAL FIGURES FOR THE TOP FIVE FILMS:
1. Ouija, $10.7 million; 2. Nightcrawler, $10.4 million; 3. Fury, $8.8 million; 4. Gone Girl, $8.5 million; 5. The Book of Life, $8.2 million.
