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alt Disney Studios’ strategy of raiding its library of animated favorites to refashion as live action blockbusters – an approach that yielded such successes as ‘Maleficent’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ and one the studio plans to employ on ‘Dumbo’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’.
“From a company perspective and a public perspective, fairy tales are a part of our DNA,” said Dave Hollis, Disney’s Distribution Chief. “This is decidedly something that Disney does and does well.”
‘Cinderella’s’ popularity left Liam Neeson’s latest action-adventure, ‘Run All Night,’ huffing and puffing at the finish line. The Warner Bros. release pulled in a lackluster $11 million from 3,171 theaters, lower than pre-release tracking which suggested a debut in the $15 million range. The audience for the story of a father protecting his son (Joel Kinnaman) from mob hit men was 52% female and 86% over the age of 25.
It’s possible that Neeson, who was recently seen making short work of European bad guys in January’s ‘Taken 3,’ has simply been brandishing the gun a bit too much of late. ‘Run All Night’ cost $50 million to produce, so it will need to attract foreign crowds if it wants to break even.
‘Cinderella; opened across 3,845 theaters in North America and cost $95 million to produce. Opening weekend crowds were 68% female, 66% families and 31% comprised of moviegoers under the age of 12.
The film wasn’t in 3D, but it did get a nice boost from other premium formats. Imax represent 7% of ‘Cinderella’s’ gross and premium large formats comprised 8% of the box office results.
‘Cinderella’ couldn’t match the $116.1 million debut of ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ but it did surpass the $69.4 million premiere of ‘Maleficent’. That’s impressive considering that despite featuring Cate Blanchett and ‘Downton Abbey’s’ Lily James, ‘Cinderella’ lacked a star on the level of Johnny Depp or Angelina Jolie to bring in crowds. It also cost half of the roughly $200 million each that Disney spent producing those fantasies.
‘Cinderella’ was a juggernaut overseas picking up an estimated $62.4 million, $25 million of which came from China. The film opened in about 60% of the international marketplace, including such major territories as Russia, Italy, Mexico and Germany.
In the holdover realm, ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ has now crossed the $100 million mark. The Fox action-adventure captured third place with $6.2 million, pushing its stateside haul to $107.4 million. ‘Focus,’ Will Smith’s heist romance, snagged fourth position on the charts with $5.8 million. The Warner Bros. release has made $44 million after three weeks in theaters.
Fifth place went to Fox Searchlight’s ‘The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,’ which held steady with $5.7 million from 2,022 theaters in its sophomore frame, dropping a mere 33% and bringing its total to $18.1 million.
Among other art house releases, ‘Seymour: An Introduction,’ Ethan Hawke’s look at a pianist and teacher debuted on two screens where it made $26,320 for a per-screen average of $13,160.
Not everyone was as lucky as ‘It Follows’. Official numbers have yet to be released but it appears that Adam Sandler’s critically panned ‘The Cobbler’ will eke out a meager $21,00 from 17 theaters.
After two weeks of lagging behind 2014’s box office results, ‘Cinderella’ helped lift domestic ticket sales more than 16% over the year-ago period to top out at $133 million. The key was providing some fresh all-ages fare to a marketplace that had been dominated by adult films such as ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and ‘Focus’.
