Weekend Box Office: 'Obsessed' Explodes in Niche Market; Three More Have Strong Debuts
Filed under: New Releases, Box Office
The presence of Beyoncé Knowles plus appropriately sultry/trashy advertising scored a big hit for Screen Gems this weekend, with Obsessed raking in a cool $28.5 million between black audiences and thriller audiences. Depending on how it holds up, the airport novel of a film could compete with The Exorcism of Emily Rose for the title of highest-grossing Screen Gems release ($75 million). It's a marketing triumph and a minor April surprise.Three more films debuted in wide release and all posted comparatively strong numbers. That's a somewhat controversial claim for The Soloist, whose $9.7 million, fourth-place finish doesn't seem too robust. It's certainly not overwhelming, but for an arty, detached film that was moved from awards season to April, it's not awful. Rogue's Fighting finished slightly ahead with $11.4 milion, beating last spring's street-brawling movie, Never Back Down. And Earth, the DisneyNature documentary that opened Wednesday, picked up $8.5 million for the weekend -- the second biggest all-time opening for a documentary -- and $14.2 million for the five days. Good for them.
Out of the top ten, the critically panned The Informers -- Senator Entertainment's first attempt at a theatrical release -- floundered with $300,000 in semi-wide release. Senator, you will recall, is the distributor that has kept All the Boys Love Mandy Lane on the shelf for approximately forever. Make of that what you will.
Last weekend's main holdovers, 17 Again and State of Play each fell around 50%. The latter is a bit of a disappointment, as I had hoped that the exceedingly entertaining film would coast at least slightly on good word-of-mouth.
The full top 10 after the jump.
1 - Obsessed (Screen Gems) - $28.50 ($11,337) - $28.50
2 - 17 Again (New Line) - $11.67 ($3,584) - $39.97
3 - Fighting (Rogue) - $11.44 ($4,995) - $11.44
4 - The Soloist (Dreamworks) - $9.71 ($4,800) - $9.71
5 - Earth (DisneyNature) - $8.55 ($4,742) - $14.20
6 - Monsters vs. Aliens (Dreamworks Animation) - $8.52 ($2,538) - $174.82
7 - State of Play (Universal) - $6.89 ($2,455) - $25.12
8 - Hannah Montana: The Movie (Disney) - $6.37 ($1,972) - $65.59
9 - Fast & Furious (Universal) - $6.06 ($1,700) - $145.22
10 - Crank: High Voltage (Lionsgate) - $2.40 ($1,080) - $11.52
Next week is Wolverine, with all its pirate-y, alternate ending-y craziness. As counterprogramming, you get Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, giving me an always-welcome opportunity to indulge my hobby of not watching Matthew McConaughey movies. Lionsgate will also release the 3-D animated Battle for Terra on 1,000 screens, which is neither here nor there -- though it's actually not bad if you have kids or if Wolverine is not your bag.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-27-2009 @ 10:02AM
Charles said...
"Black audiences"? Why do you need to explain who went to see the movie, or why they went to see it? I'm sure Beyonce has as many white fans as black, perhaps even more, since she sells as many or more songs to white folks.
And how about Ali Larter from Heroes? I bet a lot of her fans wanted to see her as well.
You made a lot of assumptions about why folks went to see the movie, and are helping perpetuate the notion that white folks see race first and foremost when black folks are in a film.
Personally, I'm black, and can't wait for Star Trek. And not just because Zoe Saldana is black!
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4-27-2009 @ 10:18AM
Kevin said...
I agree Charles. Is a thriller that has no big movies stars and earns nearly 30 million dollars in April really only play to "niche" markets? I don't recall seeing the demographics of other movies listed on this website when reporting box office tally's. When an Adam Sandler movie earns 30 mill does cinematical say "Fart jokes catapult sandlers movie to a huge opening amongst teenage potheads!" Of course not, they simply report that it made a bunch of money. All of this wouldn't be a problem however if Eugene had pointed out any evidence for this claim. If you can link to a site that shows how this movie performed significantly better among black audiences then white when compared to a baseline of the average film, then fine. But it seems like you've just assumed that since the male lead and female supporting actress are both black that this movie must have only appealed to black audiences. Pretty shaky premise.
4-27-2009 @ 10:22AM
Charles said...
thnx!
4-27-2009 @ 6:24PM
Channing said...
I'm really trying to give Cinematical the benefit of the doubt, because this is one of my daily stops when I am browsing. But, in the past week this site have managed one too many times to be racially insensitive and biased. Between this post and the screen gems post, I am seriously considering boycotting this website. I dont appreciate these articles being written as if the only people who visit this sight are white. It makes me feel quite disrespected.
Yes the movie features two black leads but the ignorance here neglects to mention that Idris Elba is a respected actor REGARDLESS of his color, Beyoncé is an INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTAR, and that Ali Larter has been in a plethora of films and has developed quite a fan base, especially since her role on Heroes.
Get it together Cinematical or Eugene Novikov and William Goss. Open your eyes and get with the program. Black is not a genre. Black is not even a color. It's a degree of luminance. The only thing black about any film is when the lights turn off before the film starts.
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4-27-2009 @ 12:20PM
stevenh said...
i have to agree with the other posters. i've been really bothered by the fact that everything i read about "obsessed" has to do with "niche markets," "reverse racism," if screen gems cares too much about black people, what's wrong with having a white villian (really?) or just how BLACK the movie is. really? "informers" bombed, and is there any mention that it played to the "niche" market of rich white kids, or Bret Easton Ellis fans? no, no explanation was given. i mean, if you guys hated it that much, why not just say it was a bad movie, or beyonce can't act? you know, as opposed to excuse its success or try to explain why anyone would watch it, you know, because white people don't watch movies with black people, and black people will watch ANYthing starring other black people. really?
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4-27-2009 @ 12:38PM
Mike D said...
OK, I see everyones' point about this movie not being a "black movie." And I agree. But you can not discount "black audiences" as a market. Do you know a ton of white people who flock to Tyler Perry movies?
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4-27-2009 @ 1:14PM
Kevin said...
I don't think anyones denying that certain movies do play stronger to certain demographics. The problem here is that there is no evidence presented to say thats the case. The only reason Eugene seems to think this played to heavily black audiences was because two of the three leads are black. So does having a black lead make a movie automatically a "black" film? Were the Blade movies specifically tailored to african american audiences? What makes this a movie destined for "niche" status?
4-27-2009 @ 12:50PM
seraphflux said...
Yeah, I have to say that the "black audiences" reference was really unfortunate.
Even because Beyonce is pretty much one of the biggest stars today and the movie clearly plays in the Fatal Attraction/Play Misty for Me crazy stalker genre.
And, like others above me have mentioned, Ali Larter is developing in quite a cult/genre actress.
So, there are quite a few reasons to consider as to why Obsessed was this big, before having to resort to those strange, unpredictable "urban audiences".
I have to agree, this was quite a poor attempt at "box office analisys"...
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4-28-2009 @ 9:50AM
Bob said...
Boycott the website? LOL, so you'll be standing on the corner with a sign warning of Cinematical's injustice? Don't forget to come up with a chant. Preferably one that starts with, "What do we want?!" or "1, 2, 3 ,4..."
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