Box Office Machina Sparks
Sunday, April 12, 2015 at 3:23PM 
Scott Eastwood (Son O' Clint) headlines the new Nicholas SparksFurious 7 and Home dominated the charts just like last week and Cinderella logged its fifth consecutive week in the top five -- she's got legs, that girl with in the glass slippers.
The only new wide release The Longest Ride, came in third. It's on the lower end of the nevertheless very consistent scale of Nicholas Spark adaptations. They've never opened below $10 million but average out around $17 million for a first weekend. The Notebook (2004) remains the most successful overall though it also opened in the lower end of the range. So only time will tell how popular the latest one is.
WIDE RELEASE
01 Furious 7 $60.5 new (cum. $252.5) Review
02 Home $19 (cum. $129.5)
03 The Longest Ride $13.5 NEW
04 Get Hard $8.6 (cum. $71.2)
05 Cinderella $7.2 (cum. $180.7) Review
The point is that Nicholas Sparks is as much of a brand as, say, Marvel movies or Bond pictures. The plots and actors may vary from film to film but you mostly know what you're going to get.
This snarky dismissal made me giggle:
No, I WON'T be seeing the new Nicholas Sparks movie! I expect to see a man hold a lady's face, not simply adjust her hat
Meanwhile in limited release While We're Young continues to perform for Noah Baumbach despite its initial mixed response with criticss, and Ex Machina, Alex Garland's directorial debut was the biggest movie in limited release with a quarter million despite only 4 screens. The other strongest "per screen average" belonged to the Juliette Binoche/Kristen Stewart duet Clouds of Sils Maria which we'll talk about real soon.
What did you see this weekend?
Reader Comments (20)
I saw a preview of the Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman's "A Little Chaos." Two or three decent scenes buried in piles and piles of muck. Why must we keep seeing stories of "exceptional" women in which said woman is only as grand as all the other women around her are absolutely insufferable? Schoenaerts played the audience stand-in as "person who cannot hide his annoyance and boredom."
I saw "Furious Seven" they did a very good job of doubling the late Paul Walker. There is never a feeling his is not in the entire movie- they do a nice tribute at the end-to me the heart of the series has been his bromance with the Vin Diesel character. The really should have headed for the Brokeback Garage...
lol love the dig at Schoenarts. That's funny.
Schoenaerts seemed out of place in the trailer for A Little Chaos. It looks like the weakest of the period piece movies he has coming out this year. I don't know why he and Winslet agreed to be in it. The premise sounds boring.
Almost saw WILD TALES, but the screening was sold out. So it was a mostly Netflix kind of weekend. A few episodes of THE FALL, PEAKY BLINDERS, and of course DAREDEVIL.
I saw It Follows in theaters. It was okay. It's not this mind-blowing experience that I was led to believe, and that disappoints me. The concept is good. The direction and score are excellent. Still worth seeing. It's no The Babadook or Under the Skin, let me put it that way.
I also saw The Seasoning House, which was upsetting and very well made.
Furious 7 has already made over $800 million worldwide. It's a juggernaut.
I saw Wild Tales, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (too long, but really interesting) and a showing of The Room (in this case, the crowd crossed the line from being enjoyably raucous to interfering with the enjoyment of one of the best bad movies of all time).
Finally caught up with Beyond the Lights which is every bit as good as the rave reviews it received.
ScottC -- it is good, right? LOVED Minnie Driver in it. So underarppreciated, that one.
Robert G - i haven't seen it yet. but i keep wavering. not my genre but the other absolutely raved ones lately have been good, so...
Ryan T -- try again with WILD TALES. definitely worth it.
catbaskets -- that movie is a strange one.
My theater has been pretty void of quality offerings I haven't seen, so I finally caught The History Boys.
I only watched TV shows this weekend - two episodes of Daredevil on Friday, catching up on Shameless and House of Cards yesterday, Game of Thrones and Mad Men tonight. I enjoyed the TV, don't get me wrong, but man oh man do I hate it when I go a whole weekend without seeing a movie!
"The Longest Ride" really sums up how I feel about this ongoing Nicholas Sparks era.
Roark -- same. I was just too busy but i really meant to get to EX MACHINA
Saw Paddington (very sweet, but Shaun the sheep is way better), Our Paradise (pitch-black gaydrama not a complete success), Switchblade sisters (OMG so bad and not quite "...it´s good" but there are some fun parts) and finally 3 eps of Daredevil, I like it but please give Karen something more to do, way too much damsel in distress so far.
I saw "Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films" and loved it!
Hilarious! The 80s were so much fun!
I made use of my local Red Box and caught Interstellar and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 1 on DVD. Neither impressed me much, which in the case of the former film is no surprise considering I'm typically in the dissenting minority regarding Christopher Nolan's directorial efforts. I did expect more from the most recent Hunger Games entry, however, mainly because, if nothing, else the other movies have had more verve than this one. It's essentially two hours of set up for the second half of what should have been one complete film to start with.
Nathaniel, It Follows is a solid, non-gory paranormal horror. I think you'd like it. It's just not particularly innovative. The opening sequence is amazing. Great marketing campaign.
Saw
The Philadelphia Story - really good
While We're Young - good laughs
The Song of Bernadette - enjoyed it
Dangerous - catching up with Bette Davis is always fun
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night - enjoyed it as well
I also thought Minnie was great in that. Liked her better than Laura Dern tbh.
I saw The Skeleton Twins - the actors were great (including Ty Burrell and Luke Wilson in supporting roles) and most of the story really worked, despite the script and direction indulging a little too much into indie twee-ness. But it stuck with me longer than I expected.
Then I saw In the Cut for the Jane Campion month here. I'll probably wait for that post for the discussion. It was...interesting. Until it wasn't. Then I just got bored.