Daily Box Office Analysis

By David Mumpower

July 16, 2014

Who are you calling a monkey?

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People like fuzzy monkeys. If a million YouTube videos had not proven the point by now, yesterday’s North American box office would do so. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was once again the number one film domestically, its fifth straight day on the throne. Better yet, its box office inclined.

A Monday to Tuesday increase is to be expected for all films in release. As we have discussed several times already this summer, there is oftentimes an exception for new releases, especially those of a larger scale. The following movies all fell or virtually maintained their Monday box office on their first Tuesday: The Fault in Our Stars, Transformers: Age of Extinction, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Think Like a Man Too, 22 Jump Street. None of those titles experienced a Tuesday increase of more than 8%. Most of them fell backward a bit on Tuesday.

Given the above, you now have better context to appreciate what Dawn of the Planet of the Apes accomplished yesterday. In grossing $9.6 million, it increased a splendid 17% from Monday’s already solid $8.2 million. The latest ape movie is a slam dunk to cross the $100 million barrier on Thursday, its seventh day in theaters. For comparison, Rise of the Planet of the Apes did not cross $100 million until its 10th day of release. Dawn is $22.3 million ahead of its predecessor, a 33% better pace. That is not quite 22 Jump Street territory, as that film was 62% ahead of its original after five days. It is absolutely terrific, though. The upcoming openers on Friday have their work cut out for them if they want to be number one even for a day this weekend.

As for Age of Extinction, it recovered as expected yesterday. The film increased 29% to $2.6 million. In the process, it reached $213.4 million in domestic box office. As retired BOP writer David Parker has pointed out, Age of Extinction provided the best opportunity for any summer release to overtake Captain America: The Winter Soldier as the number one film in North America this year. This will be the first time in over 35 years that a summer film failed to surpass the pre-summer number one. Don’t worry, though. Katniss is coming later this year to save us from box office misery.




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The news is grim for the rest of the top ten. Yes, everything enjoyed the regular Tuesday bump as everything else spiked at least 21% from Monday. The problem is that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes earned almost as much yesterday as the rest of the top ten in combination. I have mentioned previously that the key way to determine the overall quality of a summer box office top ten is by identifying how many $1+ million movies are in release. Yesterday, there were only six. By Thursday, that number could easily drop to four, possibly even three. When you read all of these box office alarmist stories, that low number is the statistic to keep in the back of your mind. The problem with the current domestic box office situation is not at the top of the charts. It is the feast or famine nature of the top ten. Tomorrow, I will explore these thoughts in more detail to demonstrate how important depth is to the overall strength of movie box office.


     


 
 

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