New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

David Mumpower: We have spent a lot of time over the past calendar year discussing the evolving marketing behavior of studio releases. This opening weekend is another win for Big Data as the historically under-served African-American and Latino clientele were provided with a wonderful looking project. Over half of the total audience for Ride Along's opening weekend came from those two demographics. The end result is that another spin on what I call the 48 Hours Playbook proved every bit as popular as The Heat last year. While Ride Along's legs may not be as long (damn you, tiny Kevin Hart!), everything about this opening weekend is a huuuuuuge win.

Cloverfield Monster: You haven't heard the last of me.

Kim Hollis: Kim Hollis: The Nut Job, an animated heist movie from Open Road Films, debuted with $19.4 million over the three-day portion of the long holiday weekend. What do you think of this result?

Edwin Davies: Way better than I was expecting and the film deserves, at least based on the reviews. The last month has been pretty starved for new films in general, and for family audiences in particular other than the two-month old Frozen. With nothing else on the horizon until The Lego Movie comes out in a few weeks, this fallow stretch was the perfect time for an upstart like Open Road Films to put something out there that could plausibly stand as an alternative for watching Olaf and friends for the third or fourth time. It helps that, as with Ride Along, the trailers managed to include just enough solid laughs to suggest the film itself wouldn't be awful (no matter how false that impression turned out to be). The negligible quality of the film will probably prevent it from being a breakout success past this weekend, but the lack of direct competition should help it out and allow it to leave theaters with a decent total.

Jason Barney: Much of this film's success has to do with the lack of competition at this point. Frozen is still part of the equation, but its appeal is starting to drop off. With no other kids projects on the schedule, this was a pretty good move to put out until the Lego film debuts. The opening probably could have been a little stronger, and even though the quality appears to be lacking, my guess this will make money in the long run.

Felix Quinonez: I think this is a surprisingly "strong" result. I thought Nut job would barely crack the double digits. This is by no means anything close to a breakout but it could have, and perhaps should have, done a lot worse. But when you consider the low production budget and the fact that there aren't any new animated movies coming out for a couple of weeks, The Nut Job will turn out alright commercially. It might even see a small profit.

Kim Hollis: I think this is a shockingly good result considering the upstart distributor. It's a movie that no adult wanted to see, I'm sure. They're just suffering through it for their kids. Again, with kids out of school on the long weekend, it was a family activity that was... acceptable. The studio should flat out be thrilled with this result.

David Mumpower: A point I would add is that there is not a lot of difference between Free Birds and The Nut Job. One movie opened to $15.8 million sans holiday inflation on its way to a final domestic take of $55.3 million. The other received a four-day holiday bump, grossing $19.4 million during the Friday-Sunday portion of its weekend. The difference stems from perceived expectations toward both projects. Free Birds was a heavily advertised Thanksgiving release that cost $55 million to produce. The Nut Job was not much cheaper at $42.8 million yet it is another one of these cleverly distributed projects from Open Road Films that exceeds all pre-release projections. I feel like I am saying this every couple of months yet it remains true in each instance. Open Road Films is doing a LOT right these days.

Continued:       1       2