Update for updates and checkout overview: In an ongoing pandemic market like this one, where nearly 60% of all cinemas are still closed, whether you’re a distributor or an exhibitor, you must be grateful for every amount of money you can get your hands on. Open Road released the second Liam Neeson film during the pandemic. The shooter, about the MLK 4 day vacation and it opens up too $ 3.7 million. It’s the third Neeson film to come in at # 1 for Open Road after October’s Honest Thief and its first major entry, The Gray.
Open road
Open Road boss Tom Ortenberg told . this morning: “It is a universal truth that even in a depressed market there are opportunities. And there are a lot of people who want to go to the cinema. Not everyone wants to go to the theater, and cinemas aren’t open everywhere, but there are plenty of people looking for wide-ranging entertainment, as they always have. Like Honest Thief, The Marksman has filled a void in the market. It is medium-sized traders like us who have managed to fill the void and meet the demand. Consumers are very thirsty for products and the opportunity is there. The competition is low and we can market and distribute films for less money. Our advertising dollars go far. “
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When Open Road placed an ad for Marksman during the College Football Championship game last Monday, they didn’t compete against seven other titles during the show.
Note that Open Road had fewer theaters available this time around than it did in mid-October when they opened Honest Thief: at 1,975-2,245. Marksmans is 3 days $ 3.2 million to Honest Thiefs $ 4.1M in 4 days, Marksman makes almost the same amount of money that Honest Thief made over 3 days. Honest Thief ran in theaters for 11 weeks and posted a domestic BO of $ 14.1 million, which is the average for most releases during those depressed times with a worldwide number of $ 28.3 million.
Marksman was fully funded by Raven Capital Management. Raven acquired Open Road Films in 2018.
Marksman, directed by Robert Lorenz, is just one of two releases this month as Covid continues to keep much of the cinemas closed, especially in the box office capitals of New York and Los Angeles. The second of these is Warner Bros. Day and Date Theatrical- HBO Max released the cop thriller Little Things with Denzel Washington and Rami Malek. In February there are others who are likely to bet on the start of the schools’ winter break. What’s interesting, it’s these types of meat-and-potato action movies for older men that usually set early winter anyway.
Open Road also looks good in your own four walls, as not only Neeson’s Honest Thief, but also the latest documentary The Dissident by filmmaker Bryan Fogel has been released. The doctor follows the disappearance in Istanbul of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, his fiancés and dissidents around the world who are compiling evidence of a murder and exposing a global cover-up. It’s the first documentary in a while to be fully available on PVOD (most of them are streaming or HBO), and it was # 3 on iTunes this past weekend, which is impressive for a doc. The film is 96% freshly certified on Rotten Tomatoes and even caught the attention of Hillary Clinton.
If you haven’t seen #TheDissident yet, I hope you do. This incredibly powerful documentary about the Saudi government’s assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is now available for viewing: https://t.co/FMB43ngyoc
– Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) Jan. 12, 2021
A local independent movie theater is showing closed in Forest Hills in the New York borough of Queens due to COVID-19 rules.
AP
For those who believe streaming won the battle for filmed entertainment, just look back at the last year around this time in pre-pandemic times when the MLK weekend at the home box office raised $ 205.3 million, way more than 25% from the 4-day vacation earlier thanks to Sony’s Bad Boys for Life, which hit a 4-day price tag of $ 73 million, the second best debut ever on MLK after $ 107.2 million from American Sniper; Will Smith-Martin Lawrence Cop franchise resurrected like a phoenix. The new US President Joe Biden, who wants to deliver 100 million Covid vaccines in his first 100 days, last week the exhibition analyst Eric Wold of B. Riley proclaimed “a return to normal” for the large-screen theater business.
UNIVERSAL
Universal reports on the continuation of DreamWorks Animation. Croods: A New Agein second place over 4 days with $ 2.9 million in his 8th weekend. Pic is booked in 1,855 theaters, +37 from a week ago. Although the gross domestic product of the picture has been tied up by the pandemic with a current domestic gross of 40.1 million US dollars to date, it is striking that a film like this never gets that much money in a normal market where the gross assets are uploaded It’s the eighth weekend. Over 3 days, Croods made 2 $ 2 million. On its 8th weekend, Uni / DWA’s How to Train Your Dragon: A Hidden World in 822 Cinemas earned $ 746,000 – and it wasn’t on PVOD at that time. For a Thanksgiving release like Croods 2 to do this type of business now, even though it’s available on PVOD, it just goes to show that people want to get back to the cinema. Worldwide Croods 2 is priced at $ 134.8 million.
Warner bros
Warner Bros. ‘ Wonder Woman 1984 According to sources, it ranks third in 4 days. The studio will announce their numbers a little later this morning as they have Inland included in their international report. We’re hearing that the Patty Jenkins-directed DC sequel, which airs on HBO Max through January 24th, is doing around $ 3 million, maybe less, for the 4 days, making its US $ 36 million total Dollars would bring Canada, the latter of which had a PVOD release with its limited theatrical film. Sources last weekend told us that some movie theaters in the US were closing and therefore Warners would not pay their World War II bill. Warners tells us they pick up their rents well, thank you very much, with a quick turnaround from their exhibition partners. With an exhibitor open in this current environment and skipping payment in WW1984, it will be quite difficult for them to book another upcoming Warners title. That’s when they stop the light. Some smaller exhibitors (not in the chain) tell us that their terms for the HBO Max theatrical releases are good at around 55% in their favor, versus 45% for Warner. The final here in the US for WW1984 is in the middle of $ 40 million.
Jacob Perez plays “Miguel” and Liam Neeson plays “Jim” in “The Marksman” directed by Robert Lorenz.
Open road
While critics have long been fed up with the action pics of Neeson and Marksman earned 33% on Rotten Tomatoes to hit the 40% from Honest Thief, the exits of the Comscore / Screen Engine viewers gave 73% positive and 46% recommended as i hear. The guys were at 57%, those over 25 at 72%. Those over 45 made up 33% of the total participants. The diversity distribution was 50% Caucasian, 23% Hispanic American, 17% African American, and 10% Asian / Other.
Marksman’s best market was the South, which was the country’s main money maker for films. I hear top markets were Dallas, Washington DC, Houston, Phoenix, Tampa, Denver, Miami, Cleveland, Orlando, Indianapolis, Nashville, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, and Las Vegas.
The top ten theaters for Marksman were Cinemark Pharr in Phar, TX; Paramount Drive-In in Los Angeles at 16 Estrella Falls in Goodyear, AZ; AMC Dine-In Disney Springs 24 in Orlando; Solano Twin Drive-In in Concord, California; Sacramento 6 Drive-In; 16th century in Corpus Christi, TX; Cinemark 24 in Salt Lake City; AMC Tysons Corner in DC; and Cinemark Majestic in Boise, ID.
As I was told, Open Road’s campaign for Marksman targeted Neeson’s dependable core audience of men over 35 men (who turned out to be 51%). The plot and key cast (Juan Pablo Raba, who plays the villain in the film and has a huge following) made it possible for Open Road to appeal to Hispanic audiences, particularly in Texas where the theaters have stayed open and are performing well. The number 1 of the film on Friday was a theater near the border in Harlingen, TX. This is likely the first time this place has been # 1 at the home box office. Neeson has appeared in programs such as Despierta America at Univision and Un Nuevo Dia at Telemundo. He has also appeared on James Corden and Today.
In paid media, Open Road bought national television, including spots in the College Football Championship Game, the NFC Wild Card Game, and several spots on the WWE Smackdown, in an effort to raise awareness. In the digital sector, the markets were divided into geo-targeted markets in which theaters were open. Open Road was also able to reposition the fan base they built on Honest Thief in October, which has grown in the home entertainment space during the title’s release. Open Road worked with Mike Polydoros’ Paper Airplane on numerous marketing programs directly with exhibitors, focusing on theaters where Honest Thief was over-indexed as well as regions where Hispanic audiences dominated.
According to social media analytics firm RelishMix, Marksman had a social media presence similar to Honest Thief in October, with 8 million views for eight posted videos, most of which were posted on Facebook. The YouTube trailer and a TV ad that were discontinued in the last five weeks received 7 million views with a moderate virus ratio of 9: 1.
Commenting on Marksman’s social media chatter earlier this weekend, RelishMix noted, “Most of the conversation is positive for fans of Neeson who have clear expectations of the topic and are constantly referring to other action thriller tiles, No Country For Old Men + Logan + Rambo: Last Blood = The Sagittarius. And while the tone of the issues is positive, the discussion also wonders whether the movie will be showing day in and day out on HBO Max, Netflix, Apple +, or other confusion, or what the window will be like. “
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