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 Fox's hopes of rejuvenating the comicbook characters and
turning the super-team into a cinematic juggernaut to rival
"X-Men" have flamed out given that the film debuted to a
dreadful $26.2 million across 3,995 theaters. With a production
budget of $120 million, plus millions more in marketing costs,
the film will need to get a boost from foreign crowds if it
wants to avoid being a write-off.
The studio was banking on a cast of up-and-coming actors like
Michael B. Jordan and Miles Teller and a wunderkind director in
the form of "Chronicle's" Josh Trank to push the Human Torch,
the Thing, Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic into the modern
era, but production difficulties may have doomed the project.
Trank reportedly exhibited bizarre behavior on set that was so
extreme it cost him his gig directing a "Star Wars" spinoff. He
seemed to acknowledge those tensions, blaming studio-mandated
reshoots for the poor critical notices in a tweet Thursday that
he subsequently deleted.
"This turned into a nightmare for Fox," said Jeff Bock, an
analyst with Exhibitor Relations. "Everything that could go
wrong went wrong and the whole thing fell apart."
"Fantastic Four's" opening is well below the $40 million-plus
debut that most analysts had projected and trails the $56
million launch of 2005's "Fantastic Four" and the $58 million
bow of 2007's "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer." It's
the worst opening for a movie featuring Marvel Comics'
characters since "Ghost Rider: The Spirit of Vengeance" debuted
to $22.1 million in 2012. A C- CinemaScore means that
word-of-mouth is going to be toxic.
"The confluence of clearly the decidedly negative reviews with
the combination of social media did not help the cause," said
Fox distribution chief Chris Aronson.
He was not willing to write off the "Fantastic Four" series yet,
but stressed that the studio would be engaged in a rigorous
postmortem about the film's failure. The foursome's future might
be as supporting players in other comicbook characters' movies.
"We have a lot to look forward to in our comicbook character
universe," said Aronson. "We may find different ways to feature
these characters in the future, but it's early and we'll have to
see what form that takes."
The film's opening weekend crowd was 60% male and 51% under the
age of 25.
"Fantastic Four's" anemic opening was good news for "Mission:
Impossible - Rogue Nation," which edged out the comicbook movie
to capture first place on the box office charts. The Paramount
sequel earned a strong $29.4 million in its second week in
theaters, pushing its domestic total to $108.7 million.
It was a crowded weekend at the multiplexes with four new wide
releases piling into theaters. Among the new entrants, STX
Entertainment's "The Gift" fared best, with the thriller picking
up $12 million across 2,503 theaters and nabbing a third place
finish. That's a solid debut considering the film, which
Blumhouse Productions co-financed and co-produced, cost a mere
$5 million to make. It marks STX's first theatrical release --
the studio was launched in 2014 by producer Robert Simonds with
the goal of making the kind of mid-budget films that studios
have largely abandoned in favor of superhero adventures.
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"This is an exceptional start for our company," said Kevin Grayson,
STX's domestic distribution group president. "We got to battle test
our marketing and distribution groups."
Grayson said the film has been playing more like a psychological
thriller than a horror movie, so he believes it should hold up well
in coming weeks instead of fading quickly. The audience skewed older
and female, with women making up 53% of the opening crowd and 73% of
ticket buyers clocking in at over 25 years old.
"We knew people were chomping at the bit to get more adult-skewing
product," Grayson said.
Sony's "Ricki and the Flash" got off to a slower start, picking up
$7 million from 1,603 theaters. The film stars Meryl Streep as an
aging rocker re-connecting with her estranged family and the hope is
that the picture, which appeals to older crowds, will gradually
build its audience in the coming weeks. It cost an economical $18
million to produce and is the first release from the rebooted
Tri-Star, the label Tom Rothman was overseeing before he took the
reins as head of Sony Pictures.
"It's an audience that is probably going to come out over a period
of time," said Rory Bruer, distribution chief for Sony. "Films like
this have a tendency to play for many, many weeks to come."
The final new release, Lionsgate's "Shaun the Sheep," didn't make
much of a stir, opening Wednesday and earning $4 million this
weekend and $5.6 million in its first five days in theaters. The
studio paid roughly $2 million for the rights along with promotion
and advertising costs. The break-even point is at approximately $15
million, making it a low-risk investment.
Among art house players, Sony Pictures Classics' coming-of-age drama
"Diary of a Teenage Girl" earned $54,525 on four screens, with a
per-screen average of $13,631. IFC expanded World War II thriller
"Phoenix" from four to 27 screens, where it generated $135,810,
bringing its domestic total to $259,492. Focus World bowed thriller
"Cop Car" in three locations and on-demand. It took in $27,000 for a
per-theater average of $9,000 and is of particular interest to
Hollywood as it was directed by Jon Watts, the man who just took
over the Spider-Man franchise.
The top five was rounded out by Warner Bros.' "Vacation" with $9.1
million and Disney and Marvel's "Ant-Man" with $7.8 million, pushing
their totals to $37.3 million and $147.4 million, respectively.
Final numbers are still being tallied, but the overall box office
will be down steeply compared to the same weekend a year ago, as
none of the new films could match the $65.6 million debut of
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" or the $42.1 million second weekend
of "Guardians of the Galaxy." It's the second straight week of
declines, a sign that ticket sales are slowing down entering the dog
days of summer.
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