It’s a tight race at the top of the box-office and it’s anybody’s game at this point as the Jennifer Lawrence-led thriller House at the End of the Street takes the Friday box-office crown with $4.64 million, but is unlikely to remain in the #1 position over the weekend if reviews have anything to say about it.
House went unscreened for critics who had to attend midnight showings or Friday matinees in order to get an opinion online and once they did the reaction wasn’t welcoming. The film has a 12% rating at RottenTomatoes and a “B” CinemaScore from moviegoers, which is better than I would have expected, but still not a score I’m putting much stock in.
The nice surprise is to see David Ayer‘s right here, but whatever you do don’t want the trailers, they give away way too much.
In third is the awful Clint Eastwood C-level soap opera Trouble with the Curve, which attracted an estimated $4.1 million and a “B+” CinemaScore. It might be able to contend for the top spot as older moviegoers shuffle out to the theater this weekend. The target demographic is unlikely to fill theaters on a Friday night anyway so I’m still not counting this one out as a possible weekend winner.
The weekend’s other new wide release is Lionsgate’s Dredd 3D, which many are saying is worth the trip to the theater while audiences are giving it a “B” CinemaScore, which won’t likely help its out-of-the-gates $2.2 million. Lionsgate did only push it into 2,506 theaters so this isn’t a huge letdown and with a reported budget of $50 million, it’s likely to be looking to international dollars rather than domestic to fill its coffers.
The only other film I’ll mention for now and save the rest for Sunday’s conversation is Paul Thomas Anderson‘s The Master, which broke limited per theater records last weekend and is crushing it once again this weekend. Expanding into 788 theaters this past Friday the film brought in an estimated $1.38 million and is probably looking at a $5,000+ per theater average for the weekend.
I’ve included the Friday top ten directly below and will be back tomorrow with a complete weekend wrap-up. You tell me, which film do you think will finish on top — House at the End of the Street, End of Watch or Trouble with the Curve?
- House at the End of the Street – $4.64 million
- End of Watch – $4.6 million
- Trouble with the Curve – $4.1 million
- Finding Nemo 3D – $2.3 million
- Dredd – $2.2 million
- Resident Evil: Retribution – $1.9 million
- The Master – $1.3
- The Possession – $815,000
- Lawless – $704,000
- The Bourne Legacy – $479,000
