At a time when IP is a Holy Gail at the box office, and mass appealing auteur-driven fare a consistent gamble, kudos for Sony in their support and passion to re-energize a dormant cult British zombie franchise in 28 Years Later in Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later and Disney/Pixar in their relentless attempts to try and breakthrough with expensive original fare, that being the $150M Elio.
However, like all things at the box office, nuance remains the greatest enemy. Nuance in a marketing campaign, and nuance in a movie itself.
Sony’s 28 Years Later was frontloaded, which is no surprise for a horror movie, though more severe than others. Saturday came in with $8.8M, a -38% drop against Friday+previews’ $14M. 2022’s Scream saw a Friday-Saturday decline of -24% (granted, it was MLK weekend), while Longlegs was down -28% over its first two days/previews, Final Destination: Bloodlines -14%, and Smile a remarkable +4.6% between its Friday/previews and Saturday. After brutal audience exits on Thursday night (65%) (God, that’s when the fans show up, the night typically a safe haven) and an OK 52% definite recommend on PostTrak, the Boyle directed movie notched a B CinemaScore. As of this morning, this puts 28 Years Later at a $30M opening in second place per Sony, but others see it between $28M-$29M.
Global opening stands at $60M, which ironically is the net production cost of the movie which Sony won franchise rights to. Even at a $28M+ debut, the slide rule P&A economics for the zombie revamp is va bene.
Note, Sony always saw 28 Years Later coming in between $28M-$30M, their presales comped to Longlegs and A24’s Civil War (even though that’s not a horror movie with a $25.5M opening).
The positive here is that at $28M+, it’s one of the better openings for a horror movie in the crowded horror-space, and also ahead of such post-pandemic scary titles as Smile ($22.6M), Longlegs ($22.4M) and potentially matching with Scream ($30M, we’ll know more tom’w). As we always said, Final Destination: Bloodlines was always younger skewing with 39% under 25 versus 25% here, hence that redo’s bigger grosses, but it also delivered more scares than the British walking dead. Also, the lack of Imax here on 28 Years Later, particularly with a movie from a guy like Boyle, is making a difference at the till. PLFs though are repping 24% of business.
The aorta of this movie’s campaign rested on that intensely cut first trailer (which I hear is winning awards) from December which racked up the second-best views ever for a horror spot at 60.2M global views in its first 24 hours, ranking behind It: Chapter Two‘s 96M. Sony going back to 2016’s Blake Lively shark movie, The Shallows, was an early adopter of digital heavy campaigns in order to meet a genre demographic head-on. As such, RelishMix reports that 28 Years Later‘s social media universe of 225.5M was running +24% above horror franchise genre norms across TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram combined. 28 Years Later‘s SMU was ahead of Sony/Blumhouse’s Insidious: Red Door (188.5M followers) which opened to $33M back in July 7-9, 2023.
‘Did the cheat work?’ is the question asked all weekend, meaning, did the sell that this was a nail-biting movie yield more box office bucks than expected? While critics love the movie, and apparently core fans as well, some horror audiences are finding 28 Years Later to be significantly slower than expected. Alas, the hard exits.
RelishMix noticed mixed chatter out there on 28 Years Later. Sure, many marveled about how amazing the trailer was, and how Boyle retained the look of the earlier movie by shooting on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, however, there was a contingency on social who believed that 28 Years Later had nothing to add in in this Walking Dead O.D.’ed era. “Additionally, much of the conversation surrounding the film are fans excited to see Cillian Murphy return to the franchise, which may end up hurting the film if reports are to be believed that he won’t make an appearance,” RelishMix adds.
iSpot shows Disney spending more on U.S. TV spots for Elio than Sony did for 28 Years Later, $10.8M to $6.4M. Elio reached 802M TV ad impressions while 28 Years Later was 250M. Sony ran 28 Years Later spots on NBA games, ESPN’s SportsCenter, SportsCenter With SVP, NHL games and American Ninja Warrior. Elio spots ran aired on NBA games, Good Morning America, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Big City Greens and SportsCenter.
Best ticket sales are in the East, West and South Central with AMC Burbank the highest grossing venue with $97K through Saturday night. Diversity demos are 46% Caucasian, 25% Latino and Hispanic, 12% Black, and 10% Asian American. Men over 25 at 49% remain the pic’s biggest audience.
We can’t deny that Disney/Pixar’s Elio at a $21M is the lowest opening for a Pixar movie in third, lower than the first Pixar feature, 1995’s Toy Story at $29.1M, and also lower than 2023’s Elemental ($29.6M). This despite excellent audience exits with an A overall CinemaScore and A+ for the under 25 bunch. True, true, the new paradigm of success for a Disney animated property lies in its endgame viewership on Disney+, but if you don’t create a big enough boom at the start, how do you expect word of mouth to downstream? While we know Pixar can make an emotional movie, evident in the exits here, something is holding audiences back from running to theater, so obvious in the marketing: A boy with a patch and goofy aliens just isn’t cutting it.
For a while, the new ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse for studios is that original fare is a challenge to open. But the industry requires original fare to create franchises. What’s the solution for Pixar? Better development meetings, duh. You can’t tell me that the old glory opening B.O. days of Pixar can’t be recaptured, i.e. Inside Out ($90.4M), The Incredibles ($70.4M), Finding Nemo ($70.2M) Brave ($66.3M) and Wall-E ($63M)? Sure, it’s easier said than done to pull off a Pixar hit; a delicate balance between simplicity, adult heartfelt sophistication, hysterical humor, relatable characters, awestruck animation (Wall-E in that beautiful pile of space junk) and let’s not forget cinema homages (Brave being a female Braveheart, Wall-E with nods to THX-1138 and other sci-fi). Elio isn’t a bad movie, but the conceit of a boy obsessed with space and then meeting a bunch of slobbering aliens isn’t spinning turnstiles. Also, for a brand like Pixar that pulls in everyone from 5 to 80 years old, Elio was rather younger skewing pulling in 39% under 12 versus Inside Out 2 which leaned older at 20% under 12.
Pre-release social media universe stats on Elio according to RelishMix were pacing -30% below first installment family animation genre norms across TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram combined at 272.5M “sans the creation of unique pages for the film while running between the studios’ and production company’s big social networks.”
Adds Relish, “Negative-leaning convo on Elio is bearing the weight of past disappointments from Disney and Pixar, as well as those who are cautious given the film’s delayed release by almost a year (editor’s note, Elio‘s original release date was March 1, 2024), given how the movie was supposed to debut last summer. Comments include, ‘Looks like a fun movie, but Pixar’s quality really seems to be diminishing,’ and, ‘Pixar is dead. This looks absolutely atrocious. All these new ones look the same!’ and, ‘Damn why did they announce this like a couple months ago only to release it like around a year later.”
Also not doing any favors here is the title: Elio. Is Elio the cousin of Pixar’s Luca who was jettisoned to Disney+ during Covid? Yes, one is set in Italy and the other in space, but the titles are too similarly sounding. One-word titles of people’s names are quite the risk.
Elio‘s business is spread between the East, South Central, Midwest and West. Through last night, AMC Dine-In Disney Springs in Orlando became the movie’s highest grossing location stateside with $62K. Four stars, 83% positive on PostTrak, and a semi-hopeful word of mouth in a 59% definite recommend. Outside of those moviegoers who were transfixed to see Elio from the in-theater trailer (21% said it was the most influential marketing on PostTrak), buzz from family and friends at 13% was the second most persuasive push for Elio. Diversity demos are 47% Caucasian, 25% Hispanic and Latino, 12% Asian American and 9% Black. Men over 25 are leading at 35% in the general audience followed by women over 25 at 35%, men under 25 at 24% and women under 25 at 17%.
As forecasted, Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon remains No. 1 in its second weekend with $37M (-56%), though lower than the $40M+ hoped for. That’s another thing: While PG movies are all the rage, too many family movies weighs down on their pocketbooks. Elio could have used some space from Dragon here, and Disney’s Lilo & Stitch is still doing solid business in weekend 5 with a potential near $10M 3-day. What about the July 4th stretch? No family movies there, right? Um, well, Universal’s Jurassic World: Rebirth is going to eat everyone at its barbeque including formula one cars, Megans, and British zombies.
Imax North American screens for Dragon delivered $4M, or 11% of the weekend, for a running tally of $15.4M.
Total weekend is at $126.5M, -18% off from a year ago. It’s just hard to compete with the second weekend of Inside Out 2, which ranked as the best second frame for animated movie ever with $101.2M.
Updated Sunday figures:
1.) How to Train Your Dragon (Uni) 4,373 (+17) theaters, Fri $10.8M (-69%), Sat $14.5M, Sun $11.6M 3-day $37M (-58%), Total $160.4M/Wk 2
2.) 28 Years Later (Sony) 3,444 theaters, Fri $14.1M, Sat $8.8M Sun $7M 3-day $30M/Wk 1
3.) Elio (Dis) 3,750 theaters Fri $9M Sat $6.6M Sun $5.4M 3-day $21M/Wk 1
4.) Lilo & Stitch (Dis) 3,375 (-300) theaters, Fri $3M (-38%) Sat $3.8M Sun $2.9M 3-day $9.7M (-38%), Total $386.7M/Wk 5
5.) Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning (Par) 2,603 (-339) theaters, Fri $1.8M (-20%) Sat $2.7M Sun $2M 3-day $6.55M (-33%), Total $178.3M/Wk 5
6.) Materialists (A24) 2,844 theaters, Fri $1.9M (-61%) Sat $2.2M Sun $1.6M 3-day $5.8M (-49%), Total $23.9M/Wk 2
7.) Ballerina (LG) 2,537 (-872) theaters, Fri $1.29M (-45%) Sat $1.89M Sun $1.36M 3-day $4.5M (-54%), Total $51.1M/Wk 3
8.) Karate Kid: Legends (Sony) 2,006 (-1,002) theaters, Fri $700K (-45%) Sat $975K Sun $725K 3-day $2.4M (-54%), Total $49.3M/Wk 4
9.) Final Destination: Bloodlines (NL/WB) 1,342 (-796) theaters, Fri $575K (-53%) Sat $770K Sun $540K 3-day $1.88M (-53%), Total $134.8M
10.) Kuberra (Prath) 500 theaters, Fri $930K, Sat $477K Sun $343K 3-day $1.75M/Wk 1
With Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil prints, there were good ticket sales we hear in Austin, San Francisco, Seattle, Atlanta and NYC. The political thriller from Sekhar Kammula revolves around the pursuit of wealth and its consequences as a beggar undergoes a dramatic transformation in a story with themes of greed, ambition, and moral dilemmas.
Notables:
Bob Yari’s Rebel Wilson rom action com Bride Hard at 1,165 theaters, not good with $360K on Friday and $327K on Saturday for what’s shaping up to be a $932K opening or $800 per theater. Yikes. Audiences gave it a B- CinemaScore. Critics at 18% Rotten on Rotten Tomatoes wished they weren’t invited to the wedding.