LOS ANGELES, (Variety.com) – It was a pre-Halloween massacre at the multiplexes.
Four new films, including “Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension” and Vin Diesel’s “The Last Witch Hunter,” crowded into theaters this weekend and were swiftly pulverized and left for dead. Another, “Steve Jobs,” expanded after a brisk limited run in a few key cities, only to be given the cold shoulder by the general public.
Universal/Everett Collection
Their failures allowed a trio of holdovers — “The Martian,” “Goosebumps,” and “Bridge of Spies” — to retain the top three spots on the box office chart.
When the dust settled it was Ridley Scott’s “The Martian” in first place, adding $15.9 million to the Fox release’s impressive $166.4 million domestic haul. Sony’s “Goose-bumps” showed some endurance in its second weekend, slipping a mere 35% to end the period with $15.5 million. The family film’s total stands at $43.7 million. And “Bridge of Spies,” the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks Cold War drama, got a lift as older crowds caught up with the awards-contender. It earned $11.4 million, a mere 26% drop from its opening weekend, bringing its stateside gross to $32.6 million. But the results for the rest of the bunch were bleak. The glut of new releases was partially attributable to the timing of Halloween. The holiday falls on a Saturday, the busiest day for moviegoing, so studios were hoping to steer clear of what is shaping up to be a dead period by pushing lots of new content into this weekend. The plan backfired spectacularly.
Lionsgate’s “The Last Witch Hunter” cost $70 million to make and only brought in $10.8 million across 3,082 theaters for a fourth place finish. This paltry result came despite Diesel’s recent success with “Furious 7” and his robust social media presence. Any ambitions of launching a new franchise have been extinguished.
The top five was rounded out by “Hotel Trans-ylvania 2,” which made $9 million to push its domestic results to $148.3 million after five weeks.
Paramount’s “Paranormal Activity” sequel whiffed, producing the lowest grossing opening in franchise history. That said, it’s a hard film to assess. The studio partnered with exhibitors like AMC and Cineplex on a move that allows the film to make its home entertainment debut early. The exhibitors will receive a cut of digital revenues in return for allowing the studio to release the latest “Paranormal Activity” electronically 17 days after the movie leaves most theaters. However, many chains balked, worrying that the plan threatened theatrical exclusivity and thus their business models. They refused to show the picture, leaving it to open on 1,656 screens, roughly 1,000 less than the previous film in the horror series.
