How ‘Goosebumps’ Swelled & ‘Crimson Peak’ Fell – Weekend Box Office Postmortem

Moviegoers got their share of scares at the box office weekend between PG-rated kids lit franchise adaptation Goosebumps and the lavish R-rated haunted house film Crimson Peak, however only one of them is bound for bigger grosses. Many expected Disney/DreamWorks’ Cold War drama Bridge Of Spies to get whipped by Crimson Peak too, but the Steven Spielberg film staked a decent spot in a crowded adult market. Here’s how this weekend’s lineup of studio wide releases wound up at the B.O.

Let’s start with the losers:

LOSERS

Crimson Peak (Legendary via Universal) No. 4; Opening B.O.: $13.1M at 2,984 theaters; Global B.O. to date: $26.6M; Est. rental to date: $13.3M; Est. prod. cost: $55M; TV spot ad spend: $18.7M. Among its 100%-financed fare, Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak comes as another red stain for Legendary this year following its $90M write-down on Michael Mann’s Blackhat and an $85M writedown on Seventh Son. While a source close to Legendary claims that Crimson Peak hasn’t been written off yet, it’s not looking good for the del Toro title which is currently in the hole for at least an estimated -$60M and that’s not even counting Uni’s distribution fee and other global marketing expenses. Domestic fell short of industry expectations of $18M-$20M this weekend as well as overseas; a $30M bow in 55 territories would have been solid. This del Toro throwback to 1940s haunted house fare was too overindulgent, lavish and old fashioned for hard-core horror fans who showed up at 45% under 25, and it was too much of a turnoff for the adult crowd who flock to movies based on great critical reviews. Overall CinemaScore was a B-. Universal couldn’t platform this film like Picturehouse did with Pan’s Labyrinth given its higher cost, and the fact that it didn’t have the vibrant buzz of del Toro’s 2006 film (which went on to win three Oscars). Since seguing to Uni from Warner Bros in 2014, Legendary’s upsides have included a 25% financing stake in Jurassic World ($1.67B global B.O., $150M total prod. cost) as well as financing 50% of Straight Outta Compton (global B.O. $199M, $28M prod. cost) and Steve Jobs ($2.2M B.O., $30M prod. cost). Legendary recently announced Godzilla vs. King Kong at Warner Bros. after moving Skull Island from Uni to the Warner Bros. lot.

WINNERS

Goosebumps (Sony) No. 1; Opening B.O.: $23.6M at 3,501 theaters; Est. rental: $11.8M; Est. prod. cost: $55M; TV spot spend: $12.5M. Despite the fact that the Rob Letterman-directed film has a ways to go before it makes money — particularly once foreign and home entertainment are factored in — Sony already considers Goosebumps a big win after it scored the studio’s fourth No. 1 opening in the past seven weeks; a great boost for company morale in the wake of December’s hack. Goosebumps’ A CinemaScore carries a 4.8 multiple which means it should easily pass the $100M mark stateside, and even better, the studio feels it has a potential new film franchise on its hands. Throughout its 23 years, Goosebumps has been in and out of feature development, despite spawning a popular Fox kids TV show, a video game and even a stage show. At one point the rights to the Scholastic series were at Fox Family Films with Tim Burton set to produce in 1995. Columbia Pictures snapped up the rights in 2008 for Neal Moritz’s Original Films to produce. Moritz took three different passes at the script, and generated treatments on specific books in the series, in particular the Horrorland titles. However, that wasn’t working. Reaching the end of his rope, Moritz and his team decided it was better to make author R.L. Stine “a main character,” he said. “It was an idea we were initially reticent about just because he’s not in the books. But the more we got into developing, we realized there were never key central characters running around in the books, just the monsters. When we came up with Stine, that’s what kept it moving.” Testing, which was quite successful, further proved that audiences were on board with that deviation from the book. For Moritz, Letterman was the right guy to capture the book’s tone. “The hardest thing about Goosebumps is that it’s not too broad to be silly for adults and that it’s not too scary for kids.” The producer credits former Sony chief Amy Pascal for bringing Jack Black aboard given the actor’s great comedic timing. Black threw himself into promoting the film across viral videos which hit 20M+ views, a five-city PR tour, not to mention Sony hit the Hispanic family moviegoing demos. Overall, the overseas rollout for Goosebumps is structured around school vacations overseas with most of the major foreign markets opening in 2016 (UK, Germany, Italy, France, Japan). Next week Brazil, Mexico open followed by Argentina on Oct. 29.  Russia and Spain begin in early December.

Bridge of Spies (Disney/DreamWorks) No. 3; Opening B.O.: $15.4M in 2,811 theaters; Est. rental to date: $7.7M; Est. prod. budget: $40M; TV ad spot spend: $15.6M. The anticipation here is that this Spielberg film will leg out and beat its cost given the above-average nature of the director’s box office multiples; both Lincoln and War Horse posted respective multiples of 8.7X ($182.2M) and 5.5X ($79.9M) vs. their wide openings. 89% over 25 showed up with the overall audience gave it an A CinemaScore. Since it’s an adult film, that demo comes out over time, not in one fanboy opening weekend swoop. In addition, Disney wants to oversaturate the market with this film; they want to contain in at no more than 3,000 playdates so as to drive business in cities and suburbs. There’s been a bulk of ad spend per iSpot TV geared toward guys on ESPN with approximately $3.6M  alone being spent during NFL Football and close to half a million spent during MLB Baseball games. Pic’s budget has been split among Participant, Fox and DreamWorks. No matter how big a success Spies is, it’s not going to solidify Disney’s prospects as DreamWorks’ future distribution partner. There’s a year left between the two studios and The BFG on July 1, 2016 is their last title together.

The top 20 films per Rentrak Theatrical for the weekend of Oct. 16-18 along with notable indies. Above TV ad spend figures from iSpotTV:

1). Goosebumps (SONY), 3,501 theaters / 3-day cume: $23.6M / Per screen average: $6,746 /Wk 1

2). The Martian (FOX), 3,701 theaters (-153) /3-day cume: $21.3M (-42%)/ Per screen: $5,755 / Total cume: $143.6M /Wk 3

3). Bridge Of Spies (DIS), 2,811 theaters /3-day cume: $15.4M / Per screen: $5,468 /Wk 1

4). Crimson Peak (UNI), 2,984 theaters / 3-day cume: $13.1M / Per screen: $4,405 /Wk 1

5). Hotel Transylvania 2 (SONY), 3,533 theaters (-235) /3-day cume: $12.7M (-38%) / Per screen: $3,579 /Total cume: $136.8M /Wk 3

6). Pan (WB), 3,515 theaters (0) / 3-day cume: $5.9M (-62%) / Per screen: $1,668 /Total cume: $25.7M /Wk 1

7). The Intern (WB), 2,707 theaters (-517)/ 3-day cume: $5.4M (-37%)/ Per screen: $2,012 /Total cume: $58.8M/Wk 4

8). Sicario (LGF), 2,130 theaters (-490) /3-day cume: $4.6M (-40%) / Per screen: $2,140 /Total cume: $34.7M /Wk 5

9). Woodlawn (PURE), 1,553 theaters / 3-day cume: $4M / Per screen: $2,577 /Wk 1

10). Maze Runner: Scorch Trials (FOX), 1,976 theaters (-871)/3-day cume: $2.9M (-47%)/ Per screen: $1,452 / Total cume: $75.5M/Wk 5

11). Steve Jobs (UNI), 60 theaters (+56) /3-day cume: $1.5M (+190%)/ Per screen: $25,212 / Total cume: $2.2M/Wk 2

12). MET Opera: Otello (2015), (FTE), 900 theaters /3-day cume: $1.3M / Per screen: $1,444 /Wk 1

13). Black Mass (WB), 1,055 theaters (-1,002)/ 3-day cume: $1.3M (-59%)/ Per screen: $1,211 / Total cume: $60.2M /Wk 5

14). Everest (UNI), 950 theaters (-1,170) /3-day cume: $1.2M (-61%) / Per screen: $1,275 /Total cume: 40.8M/Wk 5

15). The Walk (SONY), 2,489 theaters (-20)/ 3-day cume: $1.2M (-68%)/ Per screen: $484 / Total cume: $9.2M /Wk 3

16). The Visit (UNI), 1,068 theaters (-691)/ 3-day cume: $1.15M (-54%) / Per screen: $1,085 / Total cume: $63.1M / Wk 5

17). War Room (SONY), 799 theaters (-596) /3-day cume: $928K (-50%)/Per screen: $1,162 / Total cume: $65.4M/ Wk 8

18). Ladrones (LGF), 375 theaters (0)/ 3-day cume: $671K (-52%)/Per screen: $1,790 / Total cume: $2.4M/Wk 2

19). The Perfect Guy (SONY), 485 theaters (-402) / 3-day cume: $621K (-56%)/ Per screen: $1,281 /Total cume: $55.8M /Wk 4

20). Inside Out (DIS), 276 theaters (-46) / 3-day cume: $365K (-17%)/ Per screen: $1,324 /Total cume: $354.9M /Wk 18

Notables:

Room (A24), 4 theaters / 3-day cume: $118K /Per screen: $29,574 /Wk 1

Truth (SPC), 6 theaters /3-day cume: $66K /Per screen: $11,039 / Wk 1

Beast Of No Nation (BST), 31 theaters / 3-day cume: $51K / Per screen: $1,645 / Wk 1

The Assassin (WLGO), 4 theaters / 3-day cume: $48K / Per screen: $11,996 /Wk 1

A Ballerina’s Tale (IFC), 2 theaters / 3-day cume: $9K /Per screen: $4,694 /Total cum: 22K /Wk 1

Experimenter (MAG), 3 theaters / 3-day cume: $9K /Per screen: $2,894 /Wk 1

Death Valley (IP), 2 theaters / 3-day cume: $4K /Per screen: $2,172 /Wk 1

Mi America  (IND), 1 theaters / 3-day cume: $3K /Wk 1