The post-holiday North American box office looked more like Halloween this weekend as Paramount’s low-budget horror flick The Devil Inside opened to big numbers. The opening for The Devil Inside, combined with unexpectedly solid holds from the recent batch of Christmas films, helped numbers rise 25% over last year at this time.
Taking a cue from its successful Paranormal Activity franchise, Paramount has spent the past few months shrewdly marketing a low-budget horror production ($1 million, to be precise) via social media outlets, the internet, phone and tablet apps. The end result for The Devil Inside’s stealth marketing campaign was similar to those of Paranormal Activity: a big opening. The demon possession flick took advantage of the quiet January spot to open on 2,285 screens for a hellacious $34.5 million in estimated sales. The opening stands as the third-biggest January opening of all time right behind Cloverfield and the 1997 reissue of the original Star Wars.
The ads for the latest ‘found footage’ thriller boast that the Vatican did not endorse The Devil Inside. It appears that neither did the nation’s critics or the people who paid to see the movie this weekend. Critics tore the film apart, bestowing it with a 7% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. More troubling for the film’s theatrical shelf life was the CinemaScore exit poll rating from ticket buyers. Those who saw the film branded it with an ‘F’ rating. If that rating isn’t an indicator that the Devil’s reign is going to be a short-lived one, perhaps the following is: following its Friday opening of $16.8 million, the movie’s business dropped by a roughly 30% on Saturday to an estimated $12.2 million. A drop like this is never a good sign.
Along with The Devil Inside, Paramount had two other reasons to celebrate this weekend. The studio’s big hit from Christmas, Mission: Impossible -Ghost Protocol, landed in second place and displayed a solid post-holiday hold on 3,555 screens. In its fourth weekend, the Tom Cruise hit earned an estimated $20.5 million – off only 30% – to bring its domestic total to the $170 million mark. The film will pass the final gross of the 1996 original within the next week and could possibly eclipse the final $215 million gross of the 2000 sequel by the end of its run. Overseas, the latest Ethan Hunt flick has earned a huge $260 million thus far.
Paramount’s 3D family flick The Adventures of TinTin landed in eighth place with an estimated $6 million in sales to bring its domestic total to $62 million. A $75 million final gross is possible for the Steven Spielberg film, which has amassed $261 million of its $332 million global gross overseas.
Warner’s big holiday offering, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, continued to hang in the top five after four weeks. Off a small 33% from the New Year’s frame, the Robert Downey Jr. hit earned an estimated $14.1 million from 3,603 theaters to bring its domestic total to the $157 million mark. Holmes and Watson should sleuth their way to the $185-190 million mark, which would be close to the$209 million mark the original earned in 2009. Overseas, the Guy Ritchie-directed sequel has earned a solid $106 million in early sales.
Sony’s English-language version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo held up strong in its third weekend as its target audience, adults over 25, have finished with holiday activities and are now looking to catch up on their movie going. Dipping a mere 24% from last weekend, the mystery thriller earned an estimated $11.4 million on 2,950 screens to bring its total to the $77 million mark. Depending on how the David Fincher film holds up over the next few weeks and how it fares with the upcoming Oscar nominations, the $100 million mark is still a strong possibility.
While the nine-figure milestone is one that Sony will be only more than happy to see, it certainly isn’t going to be enough to cover the film’s $90 million production cost (not to mention advertising). As Paramount is doing with TinTin, Sony will have to look to the foreign market to offset any losses they may encounter with Tattoo in North America. In limited release, the new version of the Stieg Larsson novel has earned $12 million thus far.
Now that the holidays have come and gone, so has the audience for Fox’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. The film dropped by half this weekend to an estimated $9.5 million from 3,425 theaters to bring its domestic total to the $111.6 million mark. The domestic haul for Chipwrecked should finish around $125-130 million, nearly $90 million less than the 2009 sequel. The overseas markets have brought in $80 million thus far, which may be enough to ensure that a fourth Alvin opus is in the works. Sigh.
After playing to packed houses over the past month, Focus Features’ Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy expanded to 809 theaters and earned a promising $5.8 million, which was good enough to grab ninth place. After one month, its domestic total stands at $10.1 million. Another film poised to make the most of the upcoming Oscar nominations, the critically-acclaimed espionage drama will continue to expand over the next few weeks.
Next weekend sees three new multiplex arrivals. Universal debuts the Mark Wahlberg action flick Contraband, Warner opens the family drama Joyful Noise while Disney opens its latest 3D conversion of one of its beloved classics, 1991’s Beauty and the Beast.
– Shawn Fitzgerald
