Weekend Estimates: Guardians Win Again on Sluggish Labor Day Weekend
August 31, 2014
A lackluster Summer comes to an end this weekend with an third weekend win for Guardians of the Galaxy, which, in the process becomes the top-grossing film of 2014. That’s reason to cheer for Disney and the Avengers franchise, not least because the movie Guardians overtakes is their previous franchise outing, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The Marvel juggernaut was much too much for this weekend’s more low-key openers.
The best of the new releases was As Above, So Below with about $8.3 million over the three-day portion of the weekend. That’s a respectable enough number for the horror-thriller, which reportedly cost just $5 million to make, but hardly puts it in the category of a breakout hit. Universal will probably end up underwater on the film, but not by much. Things look less good for The November Man, which is looking at a three-day weekend around $7.7 million, and a cume of $9.4 million as of Sunday. That’s a long way short of its $15 million budget, although Relativity will have already reduced their risk by selling overseas rights.
In limited release, Cantinflas is looking like another solid release for Pantelion, with a $2.6 million debut in 382 theaters. The biopic is well ahead of Ghostbusters, which is set for about $1.65 million from 784 theaters—a relative disappointment by the standards of recent re-releases.
The $10,000 club is looking like it will have no members this weekend, with the best performer among films reporting so far being Love is Strange. It’ll be very close though, and the fact that it’s playing in 27 theaters should perhaps give it honorary membership, given how hard it is to score a $10,000 average when playing in several major markets.
Bruce Nash bruce.nash@the-numbers.com
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Ghostbusters, Guardians of the Galaxy, As Above, So Below, The November Man, Love is Strange, Cantinflas