BOX OFFICE REPORT September 25-27, 2015(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)
TOP 51. Hotel Transylvania 2 ($47.5 million)2. The Intern ($18.2 million)3. The Maze Runner 2 ($14.0 million)4. Everest ($13.0 million)5. Black Mass ($11.5 million)
There's a new September champion, and it only had to beat itself. Hotel Transylvania 2 opened with an estimated $47.5 million, topping the original's record-setting $42.5 million debut back in 2012. In fact, this will likely be Adam Sandler's biggest first weekend ever. (It's currently around $100,000 shy of 2005's The Longest Yard. Final numbers will be released Monday.) That's good news for both Sandler and Sony, which were both in desperate need of a hit. They both struck out with Pixels earlier this year.
Nancy Meyers' The Intern skewed older and female, and those audiences responded accordingly. $18.2 million certainly isn't massive, but it's right in line with the writer-director's warm, pleasant comedies, which Entertainment Weekly dubbed the "chunky knit," after the comfortable sweaters. The Intern didn't hit quite as big as 2009's It's Complicated, but higher than The Holiday and Something's Gotta Give.
That meant The Scorch Trials and Black Mass both took rather serious tumbles and puts $100 million in doubt for both films as well. Everest added nearly 2,500 more screens, but only saw an 85 percent uptick in sales. That's not the kind of increase Universal was hoping for.
Outside the top 5: - This Weekend's Indie Champ: Sicario, Denis Villeneuve's drug cartel thriller, added 53 more screens, but still had the best average with $30,000. It will go wide on October 2.
- Eli Roth returned with his first film in nearly eight years, and while it didn't go as poorly for him as the characters in The Green Inferno, it wasn't pretty. Opening in ninth place with right around $3.5 million, that just won't cut it for a horror movie opening on 1,500-plus screens.
- Stonewall, the true-life film about the flashpoint of the gay rights movement, was a huge disaster. Roland Emmerich, director of action flicks like Independence Day and White House Down, made a more personal film, but critics trashed the film's lousy writing, weak acting and poor directorial choices. (They still praised the film's importance.) Audiences responded similarly, and the film made only $112,414, despite opening on more than 100 screens.
Next week: Everyone made way for The Martian, Ridley Scott's adaptation of the best-selling Andy Weir novel. It's a great, entertaining film and should have a debut north of $50 million, meaning it might top Gravity for the biggest October premiere ever. But Sicario has terrific word-of-mouth (even the people who dislike it admire it a great deal) and could give it a run for its money. Still, I think that it's a darker film and as such will likely end up at No. 2 with around $27 million.
