The blockbuster
Like The Walk last week, Crimson Peak is another mid-range-budgeted, polished studio film whose box-office swan-dive is tough to account for. The sumptuous production design and visuals came through loud and clear in captivating trailers; the film’s artistic and literary wellsprings have been professorially conveyed by director Guillermo del Toro on his new (and genuinely interesting) Twitter feed; the reviews have been appreciative, mostly. But its $12.8m US debut is truly disappointing – well beaten to the top spot by kids’ spooker Goosebumps ($23.5m) and way off the pace set for horror this year by M Night Shyamalan’s The Visit ($25.7m) in September. Critically, Crimson Peak is not part of the low-budget brigade that now dominates the horror field, but an expensive $55m jewel-case of a film that looks to be a rare misjudgement by Universal in an otherwise outstanding 2015.
Del Toro has gone to great pains in interviews to stress that Crimson Peak is not pure horror, but rather a gothic romance. And with a 60% female audience, that notion seems to have connected to some extent. But Universal, bigging things up with a Stephen King endorsement and emphasising the ambience and the haunted-house aspects in the full theatrical trailers, disagreed about the best way of selling Crimson Peak. So why didn’t it pierce through more effectively – surely the intention all along with Del Toro changing up the Spanish of Pan’s Labyrinth and his other arthouse chillers thus far for mainstream-friendly English? It is certainly miles away from the grainy, technologically fixated Paranormal Activity idiom that has been horror’s default setting since the late noughties, but that’s not a watertight explanation. Fellow slow-burn Victorian ghost story Woman in Black opened well in 2012 ($20.8m) on its way to a respectable $127.7m worldwide. But then it had Daniel Radcliffe fresh off Harry Potter; sharply talented and rising prospects though they are, Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain don’t have the same fanbases. Perhaps the lack of stars and concerted competition from The Martian and Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies for the upscale audience who might have been tempted by the film’s antique look combined to squeeze Crimson Peak.
It’s a blow for Del Toro, not only his worst wide opening since 1997’s Mimic, but more sadly a failure to resurrect a beloved but delapidated gothic form to wider relevancy. One glimmer of hope: internationally, it seems to be opening comparably to Woman in Black in many places. Russia (WIB: $1.8m; Crimson: $2.5m), Germany (WIB: $766K; Crimson: $864K) and Australia (WIB: $388K; Crimson: $608K) are all up. If Crimson Peak’s aristocratic verve can translate into solid word of mouth in the runup to Halloween, it might earn enough abroad for a reprieve.
The little guy
Hollywood doesn’t have a monopoly on good IP. Just outside this week’s top 10 – taking $10m from 10 territories, says Rentrak – is French indie outfit Onyx’s adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 1943 children’s classic Le Petit Prince. That you probably haven’t heard of it shows that Hollywood does have a monopoly on big-scale distribution. Starting with its French release on 29 July, it’s been rolled out quietly a country at a time, changing hands each time; hardly the deafening fanfare a US major would have given such a hallowed and visually iconic piece of culture on its first film treatment. Paramount handled distribution in France, and its specialist arm Vantage will take care of business for an as-yet undated US release. But the piecemeal approach, almost as demure as the prince himself, is risky because the film has serious costs to recoup: $80m, one of the highest European budgets ever. Presumably the mix of CGI and stop-motion techniques (the film blends Saint-Exupéry’s story with a modern plotline), as well as 3D and differing voice casts (including Vincent Cassel and Marion Cotillard in the French version, and James Franco and Rachel McAdams in the English-language one) took their toll.
Lacking unified Hollywood marketing has sometimes resulted in potential-rich French blockbusters, like the live-action Asterix franchise, not travelling as far as they should. But StudioCanal, masterminding the core European territories, managed to create some noise with its fine Paddington adaptation last year, ultimately pushing it to $259.5m worldwide. Le Petit Prince should be aiming somewhere close – and needs to with that budget. It’s currently labouring around $40m worldwide, but just scooped a $10.9m debut (according to some estimates) in China – better than Paddington ($7.4m). Separate distributors, though, means starting from scratch in every country to come: Mexico (6 Nov), Japan (21 Nov), Germany (10 Dec), South Korea (23 Dec), Russia (24 Dec).
The away game
Ant-Man was flirting with underwhelmitude by Marvel’s standards, but a $43.2m bow this weekend in China – the studio’s second highest behind Avengers: Age of Ultron – puts it well on the way to $500m. Having passed Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor on the scorecard, with a strong overseas showing (60.7%) for a character with almost zero pre-awareness, and the company’s thriftiest (if you can call $130m thrifty) effort so far, Ant-Man is now a certified success.
Chinese hits going the other way have unfortunately tended to register ant-sized grosses, but there are signs of progress on that score, too. Though you do have to observe at high magnification. Back in 2012, the huge indie smash Lost in Thailand took a miserable $57K on its stint in the States; the sequel has done $1.2m and counting, respectable for a foreign-language film in the notoriously subtitle-hating market. An even better bellweather is that time-travel comedy Goodbye Mr Loser – like Lost in Thailand, an indie dark horse at the Chinese box office – has also managed $912K in the US. China Lion and Asia Releasing, the main conduits for Chinese cinema into the country, are obviously rapidly getting better at shepherding far-east box-office buzz over into the west. The $5m-$10m grosses Bollywood films sometimes muster in the States are the next step up.
Beyond Hollywood
Aside from Le Petit Prince, two new non-Hollywood contenders. In 15th place globally was French comedy Les Nouvelles Aventures d’Aladin, a mouthy, beur-accented ride into Arabian Nights territory that, with $5.4m, seems to have tapped into local comedy star Kev Adams’ teen fanbase. Also from Pathé, but handled by Fox in its initial UK engagement, was the Sarah Gavron-directed, Abi Morgan-scripted Suffragette. With Carey Mulligan playing a fictional composite of the many working-class women who struggled for enfranchisement in the early 20th century, $4.5m – 18th spot on the global chart – is her best debut so far; ahead of $2.5m for Far from the Madding Crowd and $656K for An Education. A bristling support cast (Meryl Streep, Helena Bonham-Carter, Romola Garai, Ben Whishaw) surely gave it a leg-up.
The future
Vin Diesel forges ahead with his twin ambitions to both shoehorn his love of D&D roleplay into cinemas and find himself a franchise vehicle not dependent on heavy alliteration of the letter “F”. Distributor Summit will be hoping that $90m actioner The Last Witch Hunter does better than 2004’s sci-fi fantasy love-in The Chronicles of Riddick ($115.8m), the last time Diesel let his personal pastimes stray on to a film set; the new one heads out initially in the US, UK and a random-looking scattering of 15 or so territories across most continents. Meanwhile, the sixth and (they say) final Paranormal Activity, The Ghost Dimension, is poised to embarrass Crimson Peak on a wide rollout across 40 countries, mostly in Europe and Latin America for starters. Even if it doesn’t, a typically tight $10m Blumhouse budget virtually guarantees profit. And strutting into the gun sights for a solo date in the UK is Daniel Craig’s 007, ahead of the global shakedown the following week. Spectre has the unenviable task of keeping pace with its predecessor, Skyfall, whose $1.1bn worldwide was nearly double any previous Bond film. Perhaps, judging by the insane barrage of pre-release product placement, Sony have concluded the worldwide box office is not enough.
Top 10 global box office, 16-18 October
1. The Martian, $58.5m from 75 territories. $319.2m cumulative – 55% international; 45% US
2. Ant-Man, $43.6m from 3 territories. $454.7m cum – 60.7% int; 40.3% US
3. Hotel Transylvania 2, $42.9m from 66 territories. $267.5 cum – 49% int; 51% US
4. (New) Crimson Peak, $26.2m from 56 territories – 51.1% int; 48.9% US
5. (New) Goosebumps, $23.5m from 1 territory – 100% US
6. Goodbye Mr Loser, $22.4m from 4 territories. $184.9m cum – 99.5% int; 0.5% US
7. Pan, $20.3m from 53 territories. $72.8m cum – 64.7% int; 35.3% US
8. The Intern, $16.7m from 66 territories. $135.5m cum – 56.6% int; 43.7% US
9. (New) Bridge of Spies, $15.4m from 1 territory – 100% US
10. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, $11.4m from 48 territories. $255.7m cum – 70.5% int; 29.5% US
• Thanks to Rentrak. This week’s figures are based on estimates; all historical figures unadjusted, unless otherwise stated.
