BOX OFFICE: July 4th Holiday’s ‘Tammy,’ Bows To $1.3M Late Night UPDATED, Wednesday, 8:03 AM: The Melissa McCarthy starring comedy Tammy kicked off its five-day weekend with a late night grab of around $1.3M for Warner Bros., signaling the start of the Fourth of July holiday. That’s a good start for the comedy directed by McCarthy’s husband Ben Falcone and co-starring Susan Sarandon. One note: For all pictures, we have the weather to consider this weekend as a hurricane/tropical storm is preparing to hit the East Coast. Tammy‘s late nights started at 8 p.m. across the country on a Tuesday, so it is a tough apples to apples comparison to make with other films. One distrib noted that We’re the Millers opened last August to $1.7M and had a $26.4M opening weekend. Other comps provided were A Million Ways to Die in the West with $891K, The Other Woman with 550K, Heat with 1M, and Identity Thief with $450K. Hopefully for Warner Bros., this pic will do closer to The Other Woman‘s grosses which has opened to $24.7M (in April) and is now at $82.7M. We’ll see, but it has the distinction of being the only female-themed comedy to come along since. It looks like maybe $5M tonight and then tomorrow night will play more like a Friday night so, maybe $28M to $30M for three-day and $40M for the five-day. This is a long holiday weekend after all. Deliver Us From Evil and Earth to Echo both had midnight showings. We were told that because it was a Tuesday, Sony opted out of evening shows on the Jerry Bruckheimer horror flick. No grosses have been reported by either distributor Sony or Relativity, respectively, for midnights. If you look at other grosses last night, Transformers: Age of Extinction grossed around $10.3M last night, with How to Train Your Dragon 2 flying in with $2.6M and 22 Jump Street grossing about $2.2M; both are in their third week of release and all had a full day of play unlike Tammy. Just to show where the rest of the pack might line up as we head into the Fourth of July holiday. It will likely be a logjam after No. 1 and No. 2. I did not dig up budgets for this weekend openers, so will have to go with what I hear from studio execs (unfortunately): That being said, Tammy was around $20M and Earth to Echo about $13M is what is claimed. That doesn’t include marketing and distribution costs., of course. But all of these pics are modestly budgeted fare. Earth to Echo and Deliver Us From Evil could be a horse race — you have the late night night crowd coming out for the horror films and Relativity is hoping for the family audience bump that this week might bring. PREVIOUSLY, Tuesday, 9:10 AM: The Fourth of July holiday starts at the box office tonight as three pictures are debuting in hopes of grabbing moviegoers away from the powerful franchise pic Transformers: Age Of Extinction. The three newcomers are Warner Bros’ comedy Tammy, starring Melissa McCarthy and Susan Sarandon; Relativity’s family offering Earth To Echo; and Sony/Screen Gems’ horror film Deliver Us From Evil from producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Tammy, co-scripted and directed by McCarthy’s husband Ben Falcone, bows at 8 PM, and Earth To Echo and Deliver Us From Evil both will be playing midnights. It’s going to be a five-day holiday push with Transformers’ Monday night numbers probably going as high as much as Earth To Echo‘s full three-day weekend. The fourth installment of the Paramount’s franchise directed by Michael Bay came in around $10.9M last night. We don’t expect much from the late-night grosses for the new openers tonight. The No. 1 and No. 2 pictures are pretty clear right now as Transformers will dominate, followed by Tammy. After that, it’s anyone’s guess as we expect a horse race with Deliver Us From Evil and Earth To Echo neck in neck and the fourth weekend of 22 Jump Street still in play, which was good for around $2.5M last night. So logjamming it after the No. 1 and No. 2 spots. Earth To Echo will be competing for families already enamored by Disney’s Maleficent and Fox/DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon 2 for the past few weeks and it’s not even in the same ballpark as those performers. Deliver Us From Evil is the first of the horror genre to come along in awhile, so audiences might bite, though the marketing looks like something for a TV movie. Also interesting to note: This is the first time July 4th has fallen on a Friday since 2008, when Hancock bowed on a Wednesday, ended up making $103M. So this is another holiday of five-day and three-day grosses and we will be reporting on both (of course). Traditionally, July 4th is the most unpredictable movie going day of the year and is largely dependent on weather. If it rains, as it looks like it’s forecast now in parts of the South and much of the East Coast, it will drive people to the theaters. As one exhib exec told me, “grosses on a rainy matinee are like Sat nights.” So will be watching the weather, especially if a hurricane or tropical storm washes out part of the Southeast.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Jul 2014 17:12:45 +0000