Most times when a movie is not screened for critics, viewers should beware. That’s what Sony did with No Good Deed. By the time the first reviews were published late Friday, they were either lukewarm or worse. But it was too late, because in the meantime a very clever marketing campaign had already kicked in. And it worked: with a production budget just below $14 million, the Idris Elba and Taraji P. Henson starring thriller took home in its first outing over $24.5 million, driven by an interesting set of demographics: 60% of its audience was female, 41% under age 30.
Its competition for the number one spot was supposed to be Dolphin Tale 2, but there was really no contest. In its first appearance three years ago, the family movie starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd took in $19 million and ended its run with a domestic total of $72 million and some change internationally. This time around it starts with just $16.5 million domestically, not a good sign for a sequel although the viewers who paid for their tickets, mostly women and children, seemed to like what they saw.
Apart from these two new releases, the domestic market was filled by some holdovers, starting with Guardians of the Galaxy. By adding another $8 million, it passed the $300 million mark, the first movie of 2014 to do so. It passed the same mark also internationally and so the cumulative now stands at $611 million. With China still to come. Other holdovers that continue collecting money and viewers are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ($4.7 million domestic and $10.5 million international, for total cumulative of $320 million); Let’s Be Cops that made $4.3 million, which brings its total up to $73 million and worldwide to $95 million; Chloe Moretz’s If I Stay which added $4 million for a total $44.9 million; the Pierce Brosnan thriller November Man, that added just $2.75 million domestic for a disappointing total of $22 million.
Among the new titles, things were pretty good for the Dennis Lehane adaptation Drop. Fox Searchlight banked on this being the last film of the late James Gandolfini and it worked: $4.2 million out of just 800 theaters. The movie, which stars also Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace and a very likable dog, was helped by mostly positive reviews and a wider release is being planned in the weeks ahead, domestically and internationally.
Overseas, Scarlett Johansson still rules with Lucy. The Luc Besson sci-fi thriller added another $25 million from 55 territories, for a cumulative of $354 million. Just Russia, where it opened at number one, brought $9.5 million. Into The Storm did not fare as well as expected domestically ($45 million) but by adding another $14 million internationally its total worldwide tally stands at a respectable $133 million. Same for Sex Tape, which has grossed $11.5 million in 52 markets, with almost half that amount coming from Germany where the Cameron Diaz vehicle debuted at the top. And after some initial stuttering, Expendables 3 seems to have found its rhythm and keeps gathering strength, dollars and especially foreign currency: it stands now at a worldwide cumulative of $180 million. And results are not in yet from China, where it had an auspicious first week of $33 million.
Ahead of its domestic debut on September 26, The Boxtrolls opened overseas in eight territories earning $5.7 million. The animated fable produced by Laika (the Portland studio that has given us Coraline and ParaNorman) did especially well in the UK ($3.4 million) and in Mexico ($1.8 million). Next weekend will instead see the debut of Liam Neeson’s A Walk Among the Tombstones, Kevin Smith’s Tusk and Warner’s family comedy This is Where I Leave You, starring Jane Fonda, Tina Fey, Adam Driver and Jason Bateman.
Lorenzo Soria