Soft Weekend at the Box Office: ‘End of Watch’, ‘Trouble with the Curve’ & ‘House at The End of the Street’ Battling for Top Spot
The long string of tepid weekends at the box office continues as a trio of three middling movies battled for first place. With End of Watch, Trouble with the Curve and House at The End of the Street all coming in between $12.7 million and $13 million, the true weekend winner will only be known on Monday when actual numbers are tallied.
Open Road’s cop thriller End of Watch ($13 million), starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena, may have a very slight edge as it received an A- CinemaScore from exit polling, the best of any new film. Males made up 54 percent of the audience, with Hispanic moviegoers making up a whopping 32 percent of the audience.
David Ayer’s movie about two LAPD officers uncovering a drug cartel cost $7 million and quite surprisingly received highly positive reviews from the critical community despite its found-footage format.
Meanwhile, the Jennifer Lawrence horror pic House at the End of the Street also brought in an estimated $13 million over the weekend. Receiving a dismal 14% Rotten Tomatoes score, the movie likely benefited from the commercial appeal of The Hunger Games star. The movie received a B CinemaScore and was produced for under $10 million.
Warner Bros’ new baseball drama Trouble with the Curve, starring Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake, earned an estimated $12.7 million for the projected third spot. It’s a somewhat disappointing start given the star power of the players involved but baseball movies have never been a big draw at the movie theater. Last year’s Moneyball opened with $19 million on the back of very strong Oscar buzz and the much bigger box office appeal of star Brad Pitt.
Most disappointing however is Dredd 3D‘s performance. The Lionsgate movie claimed a disappointing $6.4 million to open at the sixth spot. This isn’t surprising to me as the marketing material for this remake of the 1995 movie was so dismal that I was stunned the movie received mostly glowing reviews in the days leading up to its release.
Finally, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master expanded to 788 theaters and climbed up the box office chart to No. 7 with $5 million over the weekend grossing $5 million.
Weekend Box Office |
|
|---|---|
| 1. Iron Man 3 | $72.5M |
| 2. The Great Gatsby | $51.1M |
| 3. Pain and Gain | $5.0M |
| 4. Tyler Perry Presents Peeples | $4.5M |
| 5. 42 | $4.7M |
| 6. Oblivion | $3.9M |
| 7. The Croods | $3.6M |
| 8. The Big Wedding | $2.5M |
| 9. Mud | $2.3M |
| 10. Oz The Great and Powerful | $0.8M |
7 Comments
WOW, I thought with all the positive reviews Dredd would top box office. That is disappointing! I had hoped that it’d bring more prominent roles for Karl Urban
Nah, I’m not really surprised. No one was looking forward to that movie whatsoever. Nothing against Karl Urban or Olivia Thirlby but they are anything but box office draws. And then, add the marketing material which was really weak I thought and you have a box office bomb.
Bit surprised by the poor Dredd performance but maybe word of mouth will improve its box office this week.
Doubt it. It will probably find a new lease of life when it hits home video and people slowly realize it’s much better than the trailers would suggest.
I am surprised with the DREDD performance too.
I’m also somewhat surprised Dredd didn’t perform better, but it might find its best success at home once the film is released on DVD. I think the fact that Urban isn’t really a household name and the film hasn’t really been marketed all that strongly isn’t helping the film’s chances.
I’m not, however, sure if I’m more or less surprised that End of Watch didn’t come in stronger.
I think Dredd will end up becoming a cult hit. Something that was completely overlooked when it was released but ends up getting a small core of outspoken fans.
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