Box Office Massacre: 'Last Witch Hunter,' 'Paranormal Activity 6' and 'Steve Jobs' Flop

By Brent Lang
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 25 (Variety.com) - It was a pre-Halloween
massacre at the multiplexes.
Four new films, including "Paranormal Activity: The Ghost
Dimension" and Vin Diesel's "The Last Witch Hunter," crowded
into theaters this weekend and were swiftly pulverized and left
for dead. Another, "Steve Jobs," expanded after a brisk limited
run in a few key cities, only to be given the cold shoulder by
the general public.
Their failures allowed a trio of holdovers -- "The Martian,"
"Goosebumps," and "Bridge of Spies" -- to retain the top three
spots on the box office chart.
When the dust settled it was Ridley Scott's "The Martian" in
first place, adding $15.9 million to the Fox release's
impressive $166.4 million domestic haul. Sony's "Goosebumps"
showed some endurance in its second weekend, slipping a mere 35%
to end the period with $15.5 million. The family film's total
stands at $43.7 million. And "Bridge of Spies," the Steven
Spielberg and Tom Hanks Cold War drama, got a lift as older
crowds caught up with the awards-contender. It earned $11.4
million, a mere 26% drop from its opening weekend, bringing its
stateside gross to $32.6 million.
But the results for the rest of the bunch were bleak. The
glut of new releases was partially attributable to the timing of
Halloween. The holiday falls on a Saturday, the busiest day for
moviegoing, so studios were hoping to steer clear of what is
shaping up to be a dead period by pushing lots of new content
into this weekend. The plan backfired spectacularly.
Lionsgate's "The Last Witch Hunter" cost $70 million to make
and only brought in $10.8 million across 3,082 theaters for a
fourth place finish. This paltry result came despite Diesel's
recent success with "Furious 7" and his robust social media
presence. Any ambitions of launching a new franchise have been
extinguished.
The top five was rounded out by "Hotel Transylvania 2,"
which made $9 million to push its domestic results to $148.3
million after five weeks.
Paramount's "Paranormal Activity" sequel whiffed, producing
the lowest grossing opening in franchise history. That said,
it's a hard film to assess. The studio partnered with exhibitors
like AMC and Cineplex on a move that allows the film to make its
home entertainment debut early. The exhibitors will receive a
cut of digital revenues in return for allowing the studio to
release the latest "Paranormal Activity" electronically 17 days
after the movie leaves most theaters. However, many chains
balked, worrying that the plan threatened theatrical exclusivity
and thus their business models. They refused to show the
picture, leaving it to open on 1,656 screens, roughly 1,000 less
than the previous film in the horror series.
Perhaps the most frustrating stumble was "Steve Jobs," a
picture that on paper seemed like an awards season breakout in
the making. After scoring the best per-screen average two weeks
ago and slowly expanding with positive results, "Steve Jobs"
failed to stick the landing when it was finally ready to go
nationwide. It made a disappointing $7.3 million from 2,443
locations. That barely beat the $6.7 million that Ashton
Kutcher's critically excoriated "Jobs" made in its initial
weekend.
The talky drama always faced commercial headwinds --
something that caused one studio, Sony, to pass on the project,
before producer Scott Rudin found a backer in Universal. But the
strong reviews and eye-catching posters seemed to be working.
Ultimately the buzz didn't translate into box office, and making
it unlikely that "Steve Jobs" will earn back its $30 million
budget and millions more in marketing costs.
The weekend also hosted two low-cost duds in Universal's
"Jem and the Holograms" and Open Road's "Rock the Kasbah," which
opened to $1.3 million and $1.5 million, respectively. That
wasn't even good enough to crack the top ten. At least these
films won't result in oceans of red ink. "Jem and the
Holograms," which adapts the 1980s cartoon, has a $5 million
budget. "Rock the Kasbah," which features Bill Murray as a rock
promoter in Afghanistan, cost $15 million to make.
What's particularly alarming is that pre-release tracking
had many of these films doing substantially better ("The Last
Witch Hunter" was expected to do as much as $17 million, while
some estimates had "Steve Jobs" expanding to the tune of $19
million).
Overall, box office revenues were down more than 10% from
the year-ago period when "Ouija" and "John Wick" topped charts.