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tomatometer:

75% SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

73% American Sniper

23% Jupiter Ascending

10% Seventh Son

98% Paddington

metacritic:

*click pic(s) for source*

‘SpongeBob’ Tops With $56 Million, ‘Jupiter Ascending,’ ‘Seventh Son’ Flop

“The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water” soaked up a massive $56 million at the weekend box office, leaving little remaining for two other new releases, “Jupiter Ascending” and “Seventh Son,” both of which flopped.

“Jupiter Ascending,” an ambitious science-fiction fantasy from Andy and Lana Wachowski, eked out $19 million from 3,181 theaters, making it the “Matrix” siblings’ third consecutive whiff after “Cloud Atlas” and “Speed Racer.” The film stars Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis and cost a staggering $179 million to produce. It was originally scheduled to open in July, but was pushed back to accommodate its complex special effects works. Village Roadshow co-financed the film with Warner Bros.

“The Wachowkis have an incredible history of making fan favorite films,” said Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros. distribution executive vice president. “This didn’t hit the wide audience their films have in the past, but they’ll do better in the future.”

Males were “Jupiter’s” core audience, comprising 57% of ticket-buyers, while the opening crowd was 82% over the age of 25. Like Michael Mann, who just stumbled badly with the cyber thriller “Blackhat,” the embarrassing failure leaves these two cinematic talents at a career crossroads. They need a hit. Stat.

Legendary’s action epic “Seventh Son” made even less of a stir, pulling in a paltry $7.1 million weekend from 2,875 locations. Universal distributed the $95 million production, which stars Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges. It’s shaping up to be a very rough start to the year for Legendary, which was forced to take a $90 million writedown on its January release, “Blackhat.”

Legendary tried to stem some of the bleeding by opening “Seventh Son” overseas weeks in advance of its U.S. debut. It has picked up $86 million from major foreign markets such as China and Russia. The film appeared to have been dented by the similarly themed “Jupiter Ascending.” Its opening audience was 61% male and 47% under the age of 30.

Warner Bros.’ “American Sniper,” continued to be a juggernaut, earning $24.2 million in its fourth week of wide release. The biopic about Navy SEAL Chris Kyle has pulled in $282.3 million domestically, making it the third-highest grossing 2014 release stateside, behind “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1″ and “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

“The SpongeBob Movie” was released by Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Animation, and benefitted from a lack of compelling family films in the marketplace, as well as the adorable protagonist’s familiarity with a broad range of moviegoers from his decade-plus television career.

“We got the faithful fans to show up, but we also had teenagers and twenty year olds,” said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures. “It was able to do so well because it played to a wide age range. It was a combination of people who grew up with ‘SpongeBob’ and had affection for it, along with a campaign that introduced some fresh elements.”

The $74 million production trumped the first “SpongeBob” film’s 2004 debut — that picture kicked off to $32 million en route to an $85.4 million domestic haul. It debuted across 3,641 North American theaters and had been expected to make $35 million.

The latest “SpongeBob’s” triumph also helps justify Paramount’s investment in its own in-house animation division, as well as its emphasis on developing projects with sister companies across Viacom, its corporate parent. The studio previously partnered with Nickelodeon on last summer’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” which made $477.2 million worldwide.

“The strength of the Nickelodeon brand propelled both movies to big numbers,” said Moore.

In fifth place, The Weinstein Company’s “Paddington” brought in $5.4 million, pushing its total after four weeks to more than $57 million. In its second weekend, time-travel adventure “Project Almanac” earned $5.3 million, picking up sixth place. It has generated $15.8 million in receipts.

The success of “SpongeBob” helped keep the weekend in striking distance of the year-ago period when “The Lego Movie” premiered to a lordly $69 million.

Next weekend brings the release of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” the best-selling phenomenon that’s expected to be the rare sexually-charged film to succeed at the box office.

Year-to-date, the box office is outstripping 2014 by roughly 10%. That’s a surprise given that on paper, the first quarter of 2015 looked weak, but films such as “American Sniper,” “Paddington” and now “The SpongeBob Movie” have eclipsed expectations.

“We’re getting this nice boost every weekend from unexpected places,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. “We’re on track to have our first $11 billion box office year.”

*click pic for full list/source*


*click pic for full list/source*

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Didn't think Jupiter was going to get above 3rd. They made it close, though. Or at least, closer than I thought.

 

[Slayven]

Modreaci completely fail off the list? Damn

 

[Kuroyume]

Time for Matrix 4 or reboot

 

[friskykillface]

Spongebob B^)
Will have the catch the movie next weekend

Wumbo

 

[Nappuccino]

Maybe they shouldn't give the Wachowskis (or anyone, really) 170mil to play with.

 

[kswiston]

Modreaci completely fail off the list? Damn

Mortdecai made $135k in its third weekend, dropping about 91% from last weekend.

Didn't think Jupiter was going to get above 3rd. They made it close, though. Or at least, closer than I thought.

Did you think the film was going to do worse than $19M?

 

[TacticalFox88]

Modreaci completely fail off the list? Damn

Holy SHIT.

hahahahaha

I've never NEVER seen that happen before.

 

[TrumanBurbank]

Another Wachowski bomb.

How they keep getting HUGE money to make movies is beyond me.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Mortdecai made $135k in its third weekend, dropping about 91% from last weekend.

It hit second run here in Portland on Friday.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Modreaci completely fail off the list? Damn

Theaters pulled it.

The Wachowskis must have it in their contract that all marketing materials have 'From the creators of the Matrix Trilogy' for their films because god knows it's not for the audience appeal.

 

[Camjo-Z]

Holy shit, I had no idea Spongebob was out. Gonna have to go see that next month.

 

[vinnygambini]

SpongeBob really did great business. I was expecting a opening in the low $40 million - really happy for Paramount.

Legendary Pictures performance this year is a damn mess.

 

[kswiston]

Holy SHIT.

hahahahaha

I've never NEVER seen that happen before.

Blackhat dropped 93% in week 3 to make $117k.

 

[alfredofroylan]

Time for Matrix 4 or reboot

They peaked with Reloaded, there's a difference of almost $300 million between Reloaded and Revolutions, aside from nostalgia I don't know why people is going to coma back for more Matrix

 

[Liquidsnake]

Another Wachowski bomb.

How they keep getting HUGE money to make movies is beyond me.

Truly a wonder

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Did you think the film was going to do worse than $19M?

Yeah. I thought it was going to be somewhere around 16-17.

 

[Sibersk Esto]

SpongeBob making wumbo cash

 

[Son Of D]

Do we have any idea what Seventh Son's budget is?

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

I hadn't really been paying it much attention but The Imitation Game has quietly pulled together a pretty impressive haul.

 

[Ridley327]

Blackhat dropped 93% in week 3 to make $117k.

Yeah, it lost nearly every theater, just like Mortdecai did. Ain't nobody got time for flops these days.

 

[Pelydr]

The Wachowskis made one good movie In the first Matrix and have produced nothing but shit since. Why do they keep getting money? They are the hackiest of hacks.

 

[ElMexiMerican]

Do we have any idea what Seventh Son's budget is?

95 million

 

[arab]

reminder that jupiter ascending is just an empire of the sun movie

 

[Walter White Walker]

I fucking hate Spongebob, so I was really happy that my ex-wife took our kids to see that so I don't have to. They're verdict of it, btw, was "eh, it had some funny parts but the songs sucked".

 

[Dram]

The Wachowskis made one good movie In the first Matrix and have produced nothing but shit since. Why do they keep getting money?

I guess studios are hoping for another hit like the Matrix.

 

[Grisby]

Will buy JA and SS on the cheap.

The Wachowskis made one good movie In the first Matrix and have produced nothing but shit since. Why do they keep getting money? They are the hackiest of hacks.

Bound was a lot of fun, as was Speed Racer.

I agree though that studios are giving them way too much money.

 

[Aaron Strife]

Glad spongebob did well. It's nice to see a hand-drawn animated feature do good at the box office.

Even if they cheated by only putting the live-action/CGI parts in the trailers.

 

[Guzim]

Glad to see SpongeBob did well. I want to see it.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

The Wachowskis made one good movie In the first Matrix and have produced nothing but shit since. Why do they keep getting money? They are the hackiest of hacks.

They probably are giving those people a return on their money.

Glad spongebob did well. It's nice to see a hand-drawn animated feature do good at the box office.

Even if they cheated by only putting the live-action/CGI parts in the trailers.

How much of it is hand drawn. It made it seem like majority was CGI

 

[alfredofroylan]

The Wachowskis made one good movie In the first Matrix and have produced nothing but shit since. Why do they keep getting money? They are the hackiest of hacks.

You know I was thinking about this, for me the Wachowskis don't make good movies, they make good concepts. Matrix was an interesting and good concept that had a really nice development in the first movie, everybody and their mom was excited about the second one, and we got a bunch of new characters and ideas that were wasted not to mention a nice set of plotholes that scare people from Revolutions.

Jupiter Ascending would be great in the hands of a proper writer, Cloud Atlas would be great in the hands of a proper director, the visuals of Speed Racer could be great for other franchise IMO. I think it's time for the Wachowskis to step aside and get people with talent to develop their concepts.

 

[Slayven]

Holy SHIT.

hahahahaha

I've never NEVER seen that happen before.

Blackhat dropped 93% in week 3 to make $117k.

Fucking crazy. The movie looked like it tried to invoke old school Pink Panther movies, but it looked terrible and the marketing was even worse.

Theaters pulled it.

The Wachowskis must have it in their contract that all marketing materials have 'From the creators of the Matrix Trilogy' for their films because god knows it's not for the audience appeal.

Does that even hold any weight anymore?

 

[kmax]

And the bombs are dropping. RIP Blackhat.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

Jesus, $176m for Jupiter Ascending is insane.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Fucking crazy. The movie looked like it tried to invoke old school Pink Panther movies, but it looked terrible and the marketing was even worse.


Does that even hold any weight anymore?

The marketing made me actively want to work against the film. It was repulsive

 

[kswiston]

Jesus, $176m for Jupiter Ascending is insane.

After Earth cost close to $50M less, opened $9M higher, and was still considered a flop. Jupiter Ascending has zero chance of recovering that budget, even if overseas grosses are stronger.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

The idea that directors who obviously give this much of a shit about telling stories are somehow "hacks" doesn't make any sense. Hacks don't have ambition at all. They don't care to have ambition. They just do what they're handed and they don't care whether it works or not. That's what a "hack" is.

The Wachowskis have a weird, varied, somewhat crazy filmography. Hacks don't have one of those.

Besides which, it sounds like there's a lot of people in this thread who haven't seen Bound if they think the only thing of worth the Wachowskis have ever done is The Matrix. And I feel like they should get some measure of credit for making the best ever live-action anime adaptation in Speed Racer - for whatever that distinction is worth.

 

[Drago]

How much of it is hand drawn. It made it seem like majority was CGI

Most of it. Like, 75% hand drawn, 25% live action/CG if I had to throw out percentages.

The super hero angle that's in every commercial/trailer is the climax of the movie. Makes it much easier to sell to kids that way, I guess.

 

[HeartlessNobody213]

Bomba ascending and seventh bomba?

 

[Peru]

The idea that directors who obviously give this much of a shit about telling stories are somehow "hacks" doesn't make any sense. Hacks don't have ambition at all. They don't care to have ambition. They just do what they're handed and they don't care whether it works or not. That's what a "hack" is.

The Wachowskis have a weird, varied, somewhat crazy filmography. Hacks don't have one of those.

Truth

 

[orochi91]

Jupiter's Ascending flop is nearing John Carter levels.

It never looked appealing from the outset.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Most of it. Like, 75% hand drawn, 25% live action/CG if I had to throw out percentages.

The super hero angle that's in every commercial/trailer is the climax of the movie. Makes it much easier to sell to kids that way, I guess.

Holy crap. I want to see the movie now. I had no idea. I thought it was the reverse. I guess that's good for marketing towards kids but it turned me off.

 

[Phoenician_Viking]

Jupiter bomba

 

[jett]

Males were “Jupiter’s” core audience, comprising 57% of ticket-buyers, while the opening crowd was 82% over the age of 25.

This is a total marketing failure considering the movie looks like it was made for the Twilight teenage crowd.

 

[Son Of D]

95 million

Ouch. Yeah good luck profiting of that. It'll take seriously good overseas to even break even.

We've had 4 big bombs so far in 2015 and it's only February.

 

[speculawyer]

Who..................lives in a pineapple under the sea?

 

[NomarTyme]

7th son... man has Jeff Bridge been taking that shitty role for money.

 

[Wanderer5]

Yeeeeah that bomb for Jupiter was bound to come sadly. Shame it turn out this way as the world building look really neat along with some ideas.

 

[BobLoblaw]

Whoever ok'ed putting Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis in the center of a massively overbudgeted movie should be fired. This is "Movie Economics 101."

 

[dmshaposv]

This is a total marketing failure considering the movie looks like it was made for the Twilight teenage crowd.

Lets be honest - most people went to see jupiter because it was made by the "makers of the matrix". That is essentially everyone over the age of 25. The under 20 crowd has possibly not heard of the matrix - yes that is actually true and I typed that.