As expected, Sony's Think Like A Man Too earned a relatively solid $12.2 million on Friday, basically identical to the first film's opening Friday. The Tim Story-directed ensemble is of course a sequel to the late-April 2012 release Think Like A Man, which opened with a whopping $33 million the weekend before The Avengers dropped in America. That picture was of course something of an anomaly, a mainstream ensemble romantic comedy that just happened to be filled with black actors and actresses. This was the kind of thing we saw more often in the late 90′s/early 00′s (think The Brothers or The Best Man), but they faded away as most niche-targeted releases faded away due to slowing DVD sales and the domination of the four-quadrant global blockbuster. As such, a film like Think Like A Man, based on Steve Harvey's self-help book and co-starring the slowly break-! out Kevin Hart, was a feast to the hungry.
The picture, which starred Michael Ealy, Jerry Ferrara, Meagan Good, Regina Hall, Kevin Hart, Taraji P. Henson, Romany Malco, Gabrielle Union, Chris Brown, and Steve Harvey, had a relatively healthy domestic theatrical run, ending with $96 million on a $12m budget. For reference, that was larger than any Tyler Perry project ever and basically the biggest-grossing wholly black-centric comedy ever as well. Two years later, almost everyone (save Mr. Brown and Mr. Harvey) are back and bringing Wendi McLendon-Covey along for Think Like A Man Too. This epic sequel reunites the gang to return to their childhood home to confront an ancient evil that they seemingly destroyed as kids thirty years before. Oh, how I wish that last sentence were true, but really it's just about the whole gang going to Las Vegas for a wedding.
The Screen Gems-distributed picture, produced by Rainforest Films and Will Packer Productions, cost $24 million, meaning it will be a big hit even if it doesn't quite reach the highs of the original film, which is a toss-up since it's going to open right around where the original film did. That the sequel isn't opening higher than the original isn't exactly a surprise. Aside from dropping in the more competition-heavy summer season, it can be argued that the first film basically played like a sequel by virtue of serving a painfully under-served target audience. The original film so explicitly served such an undernourished demographic (black moviegoers who crave secular black-centric mainstream entertainment that isn't focused on the horrors of racism and/or slavery) that it basically played at the peak potential for said kind of film.
After all, The Best Man Holiday actually opened with a little less ($30m) in November of 2013. The R-rated About Last Night (which also starred Kevin Hart, Michael Ealy, and Regina Hall) opened with $25 million over Valentine's Day weekend this year. But that's the nice thing about only costing $23m to produce. Even if the film's initial success was predicated on general audience curiosity that won't necessarily turn out the second time around, Think Like A Man Too is all-but-guaranteed to be profitable whether or not it tops $30 million for the weekend frame. The only question is whether Kevin Hart gets his third $25m+ weekend of 2014 or his second $30m+ weekend of the year. The film played 63% female and 59% over 30 years old.
The other new release is Clint Eastwood's Jersey Boys. The $40 million R-rated drama is of course an adaptation of the popular Broadway show charting the rise and fall of The Four Seasons. There was pretty much zero buzz around this one, as Warner Bros.' (a division of Time Warner, Inc.) marketing has been playing up the legacy of Clint Eastwood as a filmmaker. Eastwood as a director in a film he doesn't star in usually means a $37m domestic gross at best. Which means the fact that it made $4.6 million last night basically qualifies as a win. Mystic River was the exception eleven years ago, as that Boston crime drama won a few Oscars and grossed $90m. Otherwise, the best case norm is the $37m grosses of Invictus and J. Edgar, and those biopics were year-end Oscar pushes with the likes of Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Jersey Boys has no box office stars (Christopher Walken is a national treasure, but he's not a "all-by-myself" movie star), and it's not a year-end prestige picture (the reviews are mixed-negative). That the film opened at all is indeed a testament to the source material, Eastwood's name, and the utter lack of anything like it in the marketplace right now. If anything, it's an almost courageous bit of counter-programming, offering a major release in the heart of summer that is aimed at much older audiences that those usually targeted during the May-August months. Said older audience is also the one least likely to race out on opening weekend to catch a film, so expect to see comparative legs over the next month providing it can hold onto theaters.
The show is popular among older audiences, but it isn't the pop culture item that Les Miserables or Rent was in their respective days. Heck, even Rock of Ages, which had a case full of "names" (Russell Brand, Paul Giamatti, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Malin Akerman, Mary J. Blige, Alec Baldwin, and Tom Cruise) and a kitchy "I Love the 80′s!" hook, opened on this same weekend in 2012 to just $14 million. That Jersey Boys is going to get anywhere close to that counts as a minor win for an unconventional summer release. So even if it barely opens above $12 million, Warner gets credit for putting it out there anyway.
The rest of the weekend is holdover news. Sony's 22 Jump Street earned $9.4 million yesterday, down a whopping 63% from last Friday. Nonetheless, the $50m action sequel has earned $91m and should pass $100m today. Figure a $30m weekend (-49%) for a whopping $112m cume. That's about the same weekend % drop as Neighbors and the film remains about 23% ahead, which would eventually give 22 Jump Street a $185m domestic cume if the pattern holds.
How To Train Your Dragon 2 sadly did not get a second wind, as it earned just $7.6m (-59%) on its second Friday for a new $77.4m cume. It's already falling well behind the likes of Madagascar 3 and Monsters Vs. Aliens. It will end the weekend with $25m (-49%) and a $95m cume, just barely ahead of the $92m 10-day cume of How to Train Your Dragon. It's playing closer to Kung Fu Panda 2, which dropped 49% in weekend two for a $23m frame and a $100m ten-day total. The bad news is that a similar pattern will yield $156m domestic. The good news is that Kung Fu Panda 2 earned $165m domestic (versus the $215m cume of the original) but $665m worldwide.
With the new releases aimed at someone specific demographics, the older films had sold holds, something of a calm before the storm that is Transformers: Age of Extinction. Walt Disney's Maleficent earned $4.1m on its fourth Friday, giving the Angelina Jolie fantasy a $176m cume. Expect a $13m weekend (-33%) and a solid $186m domestic cume by tomorrow as the film races towards $500m worldwide. Tom Cruise's Edge of Tomorrow isn't dead yet, as it earned $3.10m (-31%) on its third Friday bringing its total to $67m. The Warner Bros. release should earn around $10m for the weekend, down just 38% in weekend three and giving the film a decent $74m cume. $100m domestic is still in reach, along with whatever it earns overseas.
20th Century Fox's The Fault in Our Stars stopped the bleeding a little bit, earning $3.1m for its third Friday, down 53% from last Friday (as opposed to down 75% on its second Friday). The Shailene Woodley cancer drama has earned $93m domestic and should end the weekend with around $9m for the frame and a superb $98m domestic cume for the $12m picture. X-Men: Days of Future Past earned $1.8m on its fifth Friday, bringing its domestic cume to $212.39m. . It's also shooting for $700m+ worldwide by the end of the frame. Godzilla earned $0.53m on its sixth Friday, down 40% from last Friday. The $160m monster-mash reboot has now earned $193m and should finish the frame with $194m. The Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore comedy Blended earned $0.31m (-45%) and will end the fifth frame with $42m.
That's it for today. Join us tomorrow for weekend estimates and more holdover news. In the meantime, feel free to dig through my archives and please please see How to Train Your Dragon 2 (or at least buy a ticket to How to Train Your Dragon 2 and sneak into something else).
Source : http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/06/21/box-office-think-like-a-man-too-nabs-12-2m-friday-jersey-boys-earns-4-6m/
