This Weekend’s Box Office Results Are The Most Telling Of Them All

There were a plethora of new release at the box office this weekend but only one reigned supreme and was truly deserving. Did you see The Conjuring? Did you love it? If you did, are you as obsessed with that upside camera angle near the end of the movie as I am? Enough of you saw it to make it #1 this weekend with a record breaking $42 million. Let me make this clear: this is a horror movie. That was rated R. It made more than Pacific Rim. With – like – a fourth of it’s budget. I’ve never been happier.

The success of The Conjuring is the most telling. Again, this outgrossed a huge summer tentpole that was rated a much more accessible PG-13. What does that mean? Well both the horror and sci-fi genres have very specific audiences, but when they are done right, they can be massive. Pacific Rim didn’t click (and it’s not any good) but there was something special about the marketing for The Conjuring. Warner Brothers knew what they had but they also were extremely successful in making that clear, and especially through social media. Their online marketing efforts – and even TV spots – consist of pull quotes of random people’s tweets about the movie. Finally making Twitter worthwhile. As I’ve always said, if you market something well enough, they will show up. And if it’s actually good? That’s just a bonus. MORE OF THIS PLEASE.

As for the mess of other new releases? Turbo never had a chance. This reminds of the summer of 2006 I think it was, when Ant Bully, Barnyard and Monster House all came out two weeks apart from one another. What is the point in doing this? They just kill each other. If Turbo had been released in March or April it could have done decently. Dreamworks needs to check themselves. And with The Smurfs coming out next week, it will be DOA and won’t cross $100 million, which is kind of a big deal.

And then there is R.I.P.D and Red 2. First: Red 2. I have never seen lazier marketing for a movie. It’s like they didn’t even try or care to capitalize on the success of the first one. Second: RIPD. Christ, Reynolds. Why? How? What? When? Ugh. None of us are surprised, of course. But MY GOD. He has a few smaller projects in the works post-this mess of a week he just had, but this is just as bad of a PR time for him as two years ago when both Green Lantern and The Change Up flopped. WHO IS GIVING HIM THESE SCRIPTS? R.I.P.D‘s failure says less about the current state of Reynold’s career and more about the current state general audiences rejecting bloated, big-budgeted fair like this, After Earth and The Lone Ranger. MORE OF THIS PLEASE.