Fueled by families hungry for kid-friendly fare, Sony’s Hotel Transylvania 2 bit off the top September opening of all time with a North American debut of $47.5 million.
Transylvania 2, playing in 3,754 locations, opened higher than Hotel Transylvania (2012), the previous record-holder for the top September opening with $42.5 million. “We had a great date, and this is a big win for Sony Pictures Animation,” said Sony president of marketing Josh Greenstein. “And the movie is exploding international.”
The $80 million sequel, with a voice cast led by Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James and Keegan-Michael Key, earned a promising A- CinemaScore and, in another record, is the best start for a Sony animation title.
Director Nancy Meyers’ comedy The Intern, starring Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro, opened in the No. 2 slot with $18.2 million from 3,305 theaters. That’s a solid swing for the filmmaker and Warner Bros., considering Meyers’ films target older adults, who don’t rush out on opening weekend but tend to deliver a long run.
“This is a terrific result, and Nancy Meyers really is a brand,” said Warner Bros. executive VP of domestic distribution Jeff Goldstein, adding that the movie played well in every part of the country.
The Intern, starring Hathaway as a young executive who hires an older man to be her intern, skewed females as expected (62 percent), while 55 percent of the audience was over the age of 50. Like Transylvania 2, the movie likewise earned an A- CinemaScore.
Elsewhere, Baltasar Kormakur’s Everest came in behind expectations with $13.1 million from 3,006 theaters as it expanded nationwide after a limited 3D engagement last weekend in Imax and premium large-format theaters. The film’s 10-day domestic total is $23.1 million.
Everest, loosely based on the real tale of two climbing expeditions left stranded high atop the world’s largest mountain in 1996, is a bigger player overseas, where it took in another $33.8 million this weekend from 62 markets for a foreign tally of $73.7 million and global total of $96.8 million for Universal Pictures, Working Title, Cross Creek Pictures and Walden Media.
Also opening this weekend was Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno, which is being released via Blumhouse’s new label BH Tilt, which hopes to avoid a big marketing spend by opening genre fare in targeted theaters. In this case, Green Inferno only went out in 1,540 locations. The film, Roth’s first directorial effort in eight years, grossed a meek $3.5 million to come in No. 9, versus the $4 million-$5 million the filmmakers were hoping for.
“Eli made a terrifying movie for die hard horror fans that we were proud to have as the first release in our targeting experiment. We tried something new, got close to our goal and are excited to analyze the results and apply what we learn to the next movies under this model,“ said John Hegeman, who oversaw the marketing campaign for BH tilt.
Filmed in Chile, Green Inferno, which made its world premiere two years ago at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival, follows a group of college students who travel to the Amazon jungle, only to be taken prisoner by the indigenous tribe they have come to save.
At the specialty box office, Denis Villeneuve’s acclaimed crime-thriller Sicario continued to score as it expanded into a total of 59 theaters in its sophomore outing. The Lionsgate movie blazed into the top 10, grossing $1.8 million for one of the best location averages of the weekend.
Edward Zwick’s Pawn Sacrifice, starring Tobey Maguire as chess champion Bobby Fischer and Liev Schreiber as his Russian rival, Boris Spassky, is likewise expanding in its second weekend, but far more aggressively. The drama, from Bleecker Street, grossed a so-so $1.1 million from 781 locations for a cume of $1.3 million.
Openings at the specialty box office included Ramin Bahrani’s financial drama 99 Homes, starring Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon and Laura Dern. The film earned $32,807 from two theaters in New York for a modest location average of $16,403.