Paramount's (Viacom, Inc.) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shell-shocked its way to a terrific $65 million opening weekend. Brief digression: For a summer box office that's allegedly in some kind of slump, this is the fourth week of terrific debuts for the would-be new release. Heck, just over the last two weeks we've seen the biggest August debut ever by about 36% and now the fourth-biggest August debut on record. Will pundits still cry foul if this August turns out to be the biggest on record (which it may well at the rate we're going)? Anyway, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the $125m franchise reboot produced by Michael Bay, directed by Jonathan Liebesman, and starring Megan Fox, was projected to open at around $40-$45m over its debut weekend. But even with poor reviews and Guardians of the Galaxy offering buzz-stealing competition, the TMNT revamp played well all throughout the weekend, including $4.6m in Thursday previews and a $25.6m opening Friday. This is frankly the kind of "We should have seen this coming!" box office surprise that makes this game fun.
The film pulled a solid 2.53x weekend multiplier, earning just 6.9% of its weekend via Thursday previews. This one played to everyone, from the kids who discovered the property through its more modern incarnations to adults who were fans in the 80's and 90's when the franchise first came about. The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie debuted with $25 million back in March of 1990, back when that was one of the biggest opening weekends of all time. There have been various incarnations of the Kevin Eastman/Peter Laird creation since its inception in 1984, from three long-running animated series, countless (often terrific) video games, to no less than four theatrical movies. Their popularity may have seemingly peaked for we adults in 1990, but the franchise never really died. For what it's worth, adults gave the film a "B" Cinemascore grade while kids gave it an "A".
The film played 61% male, 55% over-25 years old, and 36% Hispanic. It has also earned $93.7m worldwide as it debuted in 19 international markets as well. What was Paramount's marketing strategy? No Fear. They didn't respond to critics and pundits decrying Michael Bay as the ruiner of childhoods, the weird new designs, or who was or wasn't playing Shredder and if the turtles were or were not aliens. Paramount knew that the vast majority of moviegoers weren't going to care about that stuff, even if a clearly "tinkered and re-shot in post production" final product implies that someone did. Everybody complained but everybody showed up. As usual, Megan Fox was right. Paramount deserves kudos for a relatively restrained and exquisitely timed campaign.
They dropped the first teaser on the opening weekend of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, guaranteeing that most of the $95 million-worth of ticket buyers saw the teaser to the upcoming TMNT movie. Then they waited, not dropping another wholly new trailer until the end of June right in time to be attached to their own Transformers: Age of Extinction, guaranteeing that every single ticket-buyer to Michael Bay's fourth robot-smashing adventure would see the second TMNT trailer. Sometimes the best promotion in the world is a trailer attached to an earlier mega-hit that will be seen by bazillions of like-minded audience members.
Other than that, it was just a few TV spots and a well-timed "Shell Shocked" rap video that brought back nostalgic memories (and thus free advertising surrounding the new film) for Vanilla Ice "Go Ninja, Go!" rap video for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze back in 1991. Paramount knew the characters are iconic enough to drive the curious, the fanatic, and the general movie goer into the theater with the same indifference to critical notices that drove Transformers 4 to a $100m debut. Still, it was a pretty terrific campaign, certainly out in full force via various tie-ins (Pizza Hut, Pringles, etc.) and cross-promotions, but it was able to saturate the demographics and make everyone aware of the film without blatantly revealing much of the film's plot or visual beats.
There were three other wide releases this weekend. The next biggest debut was Warner Bros.' (Time Warner, Inc.) Into the Storm. The $50 million New Line Cinema/Village Roadshow tornado drama, positioned as a found footage Twister for the YouTube era, earned a relatively solid $18.01m on its first weekend. That is not remotely shabby considering what a low-profile release it is, and it boasted a decent 2.77x weekend multiplier to boot. It will still need a strong overseas take to make any money, but it's no flop either. Of note, the film played 58% female, 71% over 25 years old, and 16% under-18. The Hundred-Foot Journey, from Walt Disney and DreamWorks, earned $11.1m on its opening weekend. Walt Disney was arguably hoping this one would be the proverbial Jules and Julia or Hope Springs of summer 2013. Although Helen Mirren isn't quite the box office draw of Meryl Streep, we could still see a 4x weekend-to-final multiplier which would give the film around $40m by the time it leaves domestic theaters, which isn't terrible for the $22m Lasse Hallstrom picture.
Step Up: All In earned just $6.58 million on its opening weekend. The fifth entry in the long-running dancing-and-drama series (the first three were Disney, the last two were distributed by Lionsgate) has sadly failed to build its audience over the last eight years, with each film opening less and earning less domestically than the prior installment. The good news is that this series is the kind that burns up the box office overseas, as the last three entries earned $140m+ worldwide without breaking $60m stateside. It's the Resident Evil of hip-hop dance adventures. These films are a lot of dumb fun showcasing some stupidly talented dancers, and this fifth one is one of the best of the franchise (Step Up 3D is still the Empire Strikes Back of Step Up films). I don't know the budget this time (Step Up: Revolution cost $33m), but the film, which played 59% female in the states, has already made $44.2m overseas as of today. In a world of mega-budget franchises, where Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cost $125m, I'm quite glad a true B-movie franchise like this exists. I hope we still get Step Up: The Way of All Flesh in summer 2016, even if it ends up direct-to-DVD in America.
In limited release news, James Cameron's newest undersea documentary sank to the proverbial bottom, as Deepsea Challenge 3D debuted on 304 screens and earned just $150,000. Still, it's pretty terrific that Cameron uses his money and capital to fund stuff like this. The Daniel Radcliffe/Zoe Kazan romantic comedy What If? debuted with just $130,000 in twenty theaters. We'll see if CBS Films expands the well-reviewed rom-com much further after this frankly mediocre debut. Zach Braff's Wish I Was Here has now earned $3.4 million domestic, basically surpassing its $3.1m Kickstarter-fueled budget. Boyhood cracked the $10m domestic milestone this weekend, as it earned $2m on 507 screens. The Richard Linklater drama is now IFC's third-biggest grosser ever with $10.6m. Y Tu Mama Tambien ($13.8m) is more than reachable, but I'm guessing My Big Fat Greek Wedding ($241.4m) is not.
In holdover news, we might want to put a moratorium on think pieces about all the wonderful lessons from Guardians of the Galaxy. Despite rave reviews and white-hot buzz, the Marvel adventure took a now-standard 56% tumble in weekend two. The film earned $41.5 million on its second weekend, giving the film's domestic total up to $175.9m, including $20m in IMAX alone. It had a bigger ten-day total than Transformers 4 ($175.3m) and may-well end up the year's biggest domestic grosser until November. Its 56% drop is just above the much-loved Captain America 2 (-57%) and the more divisive Iron Man 3 (-58%) and Thor: The Dark World (-57%). I may be the only one who cares, but it's bothersome how the one-after-another nature of big-scale would-be tent-pole releases seems to negate the notion of a superior entry having better legs than a mediocre one. Either way, foreign grosses is where this one will sink or swim, a story yet-unwritten with $313m worldwide as of today and China set for October and Japan set for September.
Scarlett Johansson's Lucy is falling pretty fast, having earned $9.3 million on its third weekend (-51% from last weekend). Still, the $40m Luc Besson thriller has $97.4m domestic and will cross $100m over the next few days, give or take. The film has earned $112.4m worldwide as well. Dwayne Johnson's Hercules is falling hard too, with Paramount's Brett Ratner-helmed project earning just $5.3m on its third weekend as it bleeds 662 screens in its third frame. The film has a $63.4m 17-day domestic total, although the $110m picture was at $114m worldwide heading into the weekend.
The Purge: Anarchy has now earned $68.5 million domestic after a $2.3m weekend. It has thus surpassed the $64m domestic total of The Purge from last year. So yes, expect The Purge: All In over the next year or two. Get On Up is falling hard too, with not enough buzz to hold strong after a somewhat weak opening weekend. The $30m James Brown biopic from Universal earned $5m on its second weekend (-63% from last weekend) for a $22.9m cume. This one just didn't catch on, although the only real casualty will be Chadwick Boseman's Oscar hopes. Maleficent has now earned $500m overseas for a $736m worldwide cume, second only to Transformers: Age of Extinction ($1.006b) and X-Men: Days of Future Past ($741m).
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes earned $4.4 million on its third weekend (-48%) for a $197m domestic cume. It's also at $506m worldwide, so I'm sure Fox is pretty happy. The $170m sequel surpassed the $480m global cume of Rise of the Planet of the Apes by today. Transformers: Age of Extinction earned another $590k this weekend and brought its domestic total up to $242.8m. How to Train Your Dragon 2 is at $170m domestic and $487m worldwide while The Fault in Our Stars has $266m worldwide. Finally Disney's Planes: Fire and Rescue should earned $2.4m for the weekend (-60%) to bring its domestic cume to $52.9m. No great shakes, but not a disaster either.
That's it for this weekend. Join us next frame for The Expendables 3, Weinstein Company's The Giver, and 20th Century Fox's "too awesome for critics" comedy Let's Be Cops.
Courtesy of Rentak:
RANK |
TITLE |
DISTRIBUTOR |
WK |
LOCS |
LOC CHANGE |
ESTIMATED WKND GROSS ($) |
% CHG PREV WK |
AVG/LOC |
ESTIMATED CUME ($) |
1 |
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles | PAR | 1 |
3,845 |
- |
65,000,000 |
- |
16,905 |
65,000,000 |
2 |
Guardians Of The Galaxy | DIS | 2 |
4,088 |
8 |
41,531,000 |
-56 |
10,159 |
175,922,000 |
3 |
Into The Storm | WB | 1 |
3,434 |
- |
18,015,000 |
- |
5,246 |
18,015,000 |
4 |
The Hundred-Foot Journey | DIS | 1 |
2,023 |
- |
11,123,000 |
- |
5,498 |
11,123,000 |
5 |
Lucy | UNI | 3 |
3,147 |
-55 |
9,330,855 |
-49 |
2,965 |
97,353,660 |
6 |
Step Up All In | LGF | 1 |
2,072 |
- |
6,575,000 |
- |
3,173 |
6,575,000 |
7 |
Hercules | PAR | 3 |
2,896 |
-699 |
5,700,000 |
-48 |
1,968 |
63,461,247 |
8 |
Get On Up | UNI | 2 |
2,469 |
1 |
5,012,070 |
-63 |
2,030 |
22,926,680 |
9 |
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes | FOX | 5 |
2,306 |
-977 |
4,400,000 |
-49 |
1,908 |
197,833,624 |
10 |
Planes: Fire and Rescue | DIS | 4 |
2,280 |
-961 |
2,419,000 |
-60 |
1,061 |
52,950,000 |
