The Friday box office ran a bit weak yesterday, but seeing how this is technically the start of ‘fall programming’ up on the big screen no one should be too shocked. Headlining the weekend so far is an unpredictably strong performance by the anti-Barack Obama documentary 2016 Obama’s America–also known as the film that suggests our president is a deep cover operative for various terror regimes in the third world.
Believe it or not, the movie banked $2.3 million in its first wide release despite still only being in about a third of the theaters as most efforts. That is a bit misleading though because the Obama’s America rollout was targeted for traditionally red areas. In other words, a 3,000 screen bow might have seen maybe a million more at the most.
Leading the pack for the second week in a row is The Expendables 2 which is dropping big from its premiere last week. A $3.9 million Friday signals a 66% decline which foreshadows a steep drop for the movie’s second weekend. Better reviews and positive word of mouth generally fail to translate into a sequel bounce when playing with a property where quality storytelling does not really matter.
Aside from the other holdovers, there was also the debut of David Koepp’s Manhattan bicycle actioner Premium Rush and the first Friday for Dax Shepard’s Hit & Run which cost $2 million to make. Those two each did horribly with $2.0 million and $1.4 million respectively. The former actually cost money ($35 million,) so a few studio execs at Sony might be disappointed with that. Having seen the movie, I can attest to the fact that the movie is of pretty good quality considering its source material and might play better at Redbox and retail outlets because of this.