'Upside' Reps STX's First No. 1 Opener With $19.5M+; 'Aquaman' Flips Over $1B WW; Keanu Reeves Hits B.O. Low With 'Replicas'
In a slow weekend, STXfilms is reaping the box office spoils and has noted its first ever No. 1 opening since launching their theatrical arm in August 2015 with The Upside posting $19.59M.
Rivals have often knocked STX for improperly dating their titles. Well, who is laughing now?
STX's distribution of Lantern Entertainment's Upside is unexpectedly beating Warner Bros/DC's Aquaman which hooked a $17.3M fourth weekend, -44% for a running domestic total of $287.8M. The Neil Burger-directed dramedy is soaring significantly past its industry tracking ($10M-$14M). It's quite possible by tomorrow morning, The Upside ups its three-day take to $20M. Saturday's ticket sales of $7.9M were up over Friday's $7M by 14%.
Some wondered why STX wasn't releasing this movie next weekend over MLK, which has been a lucrative period for Kevin Hart fare. Others wondered why the studio didn't qualify the film for Oscars after a great response at its TIFF 2017 premiere. Really, no regrets here by STX. They knew to stay out of the way of Universal/BVI/Blumhouse's Glass next weekend (better to play into that movie, which could open to $54M-$70M).
What's also driving business here for Upside? Women over 25, who repped 46% of the audience on Screen Engine/ComScore's PostTrak and are giving the pic its best grades at 91%. Overall, the Hart-Cranston combo has four and a half stars and a 66% definite recommend. Men 25+ are the second biggest demo at 29%. Diversity reach is broad on Upside, with 45% Caucasians, 25% African-American, and 19% Hispanic. The Upside played best in the west and south, along with solid numbers in the midwest. The top then theaters include five in Texas and Georgia, which is not usually the norm for a #1 film in the marketplace.
STXfilms kept their P&A reasonable at less than $30M. They are not backstopping it, which earns them more of an upside in their distribution deal. iSpot backs this up, showing that the Burbank, CA-based media company shelled out less in TV spots at $7M than its wide entry competition this weekend. Sony spent $18.8M on A Dog's Way Home, and Entertainment Studios, which we hear was very TV heavy with Replicas spots during NFL games, forked over $10.5M in TV spend.
Despite Aquaman taking second place stateside, he's surfing Warner Bros. to their 5th $1 billion-grossing-plus title in the studio's –third for a DC film– after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($1.3B), The Dark Knight Rises ($1B), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ($1B), and The Dark Knight ($1B). The pic should hit $300M at the domestic B.O. next Saturday.
Sony/Bona's Film A Dog's Way Home is coming in third with an esimated $11.3M, a meh result for a movie that cost $18M. Saturday at $7.85M was driven by family matinees, +13% over Friday. Distribution sources snipe that it made no sense for the Culver City lot to release the movie in a family-heavy marketplace where there's Aquaman, Mary Poppins Returns, and Sony's own Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse in play. There's only 1% of K-12 schools off on Monday, per ComScore (a number that rises to 95% on MLK Monday). The whole point why Sony put the doggy film here this weekend, was like STX with Upside, to play into the upcoming 4-day holiday. But this feature rendition of the W. Bruce Cameron novel is opening at 38% less than 2017's A Dog's Purpose ($18.2M). CinemaScore was an A-, which is a half a grade below the As received by Amblin/Universal's A Dog's Purpose and MGM/Warner Bros.' Max. Speaking of the latter, A Dog's Way Home could mirror that canine pic's trajectory, which opened to $12.1M and ended its domestic run at $42.6M.
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