On Monday morning I was surprised to see that Lee Daniels' The Butler had been number one at the box office for the 2nd week in a row, not because of the subject matter, but because this is a small film and usually small films don't stay at the top too long. Once the target audience had seen the film, these little movies usually fade away. What I had been hoping for was that another small film, "The World's End," would have managed to have found a spot in the top three, specifically because the film has been getting good reviews (Rotten Tomatoes either 93% or 97% depending upon which day you looked). To my chagrin, it came in at number 4, which becomes less disappointing the more you look at the numbers, not just ticket sales but theater count as well. "The Butler" was playing in 3110 theaters, an increase of 170 - in that many theaters the $16 + million it made is more then a little disappointing. "We're the Millers," was playing in 3445 theaters and made 3.5 million less - boy was that a waste of empty seats. Normally, as you continue down the rank, especially for opening weekend films, the news just gets worse. Except....
for "The World's End." This little film came in fourth place in ticket sales with $8.8 million dollars in seats sold. And, it did this in less then half of the theaters showing "The Butler." That's right, this little film was in 1551 theaters, almost 50% less then the number one movie of the weekend. The Jennifer Anniston film which was in almost 2500 more movie theaters beat by a little over $4 million - that is an hellatious amount of empty seats, in fact I would not be surprised if there were showing where there was no one in the audience at all. If you do the numbers, "The World's End" kicked ass this past weekend. What in the hell were those theater owners thinking? How can you possible resist one night, 6 friends, 12 bars and killer, alien robots?
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