The Force was definitely not with the box office Friday. Could the frenzy over “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” be to blame?This year is on pace to be the highest-grossing at the domestic box office in Hollywood history,but Friday was a big-time bummer. Four movies that opened nationwide bombed and a front-runner in the awards races, “Steve Jobs, and ” misfired in a major expansion.
For the weekend,Vin Diesel‘s “The final Witch Hunter” is on pace to approach in under $10 million, Bill Murray‘s comedy “Rock the Kasbah” will conclude less than $2 million and “Jem and the Holograms” may not conclude $1 million. “Steve Jobs, and ” the biopic about the late Apple Inc. founder,sputtered and will conclude around $7 million, well under the teen-millions distributor Universal had hoped for.
Also Read: Bleak Friday at Box Office: 'Steve Jobs' Fails to Ignite and 4 Wide Openers FlopEven a “Paranormal Activity” film tanked, and just before Halloween no less,thanks to a protest by theater chains angry over distributor Paramount’s decision to experiment with an early video on demand release for the 3D finale in the series, “The Ghost Dimension.” The leaders were final week’s Nos. 1 and 2 films, and “Goosebumps and “The Martian,” and the overall box office was 17 percent behind the comparable weekend final year, when “Ouija” was No. 1.This comes just four days after the start of online presales to “Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and ” the next installment of the iconic Lucasfilm sci-fi franchise. It shattered advance ticket sales records on Monday for distributor Disney. A trailer for the film was dropped at the same time and it broke records,too.
With “Star Wars” dominating discussion for moviegoers nationwide ahead of its Dec. 18 debut, were distracted fans the reason the box office took such a hit?
Also Read: Why 'Stars Wars: The Force Awakens' Could Be Christmas Gift for Rival StudiosI actually mediate the unhurried marketplace has more to conclude with the over-abundance of films, and and many of them are aimed at older audiences,” Paul Dergarabedian, Rentrak’s senior media analyst, or told TheWrap Saturday. “That audience has a different way of consuming films,low and unhurried to use a cooking term, rather than fast and hot.“Films like ‘Steve Jobs, and ’ ‘The Martian,’ Bridge of Spies,’ ‘Crimson Peak, and ’ ‘Sicario,’ ‘The Intern’ and ‘Black Mass’ and ”Rock the Kasbah’ are all courting essentially the same audience,” he said. “That audience may be overwhelmed by the sheer number of options, or but I doubt anyone is avoiding the film theater because of a mass ‘geeking out’ over ‘Star Wars’ fever.”That thinking is in line with that of industry insiders and rival studios,who believe that if “Stars Wars: The Force Awakens” delivers as expected and is a commercial juggernaut, it will provide a boost to the overall box office. That’s because an out-sized hit like that can bring fresh moviegoers into the market and sets off film buzz that benefits other movies. It also provides a strong platform for the preview trailers that will precede the blockbuster-to-be, or moviegoers will see other marketing materials for fresh films in theater lobbies.
Source: thewrap.com