Leading what appears to be one of the biggest October weekends in box office history, if not the biggest, the Warner Bros. kiddie-book adaptation “Where the Wild Things Are” opened to $32.5 million, according to studio estimates.
Overture thriller “Law Abiding Citizen,” starring Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler, also exceeded pre-release expectations, taking in $21.3 million for its first three days.
Likewise, another new release, Sony slasher remake “The Stepfather,” over-performed to the tune of $12.3 million.
Meanwhile, Paramount viral horror phenom “Paranormal Activity” took in $18.9 million while expanding to 760 theaters from 160.
And Universal’s “Couples Retreat” dropped 48 percent from week one but still had plenty of juice with a $17.9 weekend.
Studio number crunchers were still doing their thing as of Sunday morning. But according to Kyle Davies, executive VP of distribution for Overture, the total weekend take for the domestic box office should approach $140 million, which would easily be an all-time high.
For its part, Warner is certain that “Wild Things’” $32.5 performance is the biggest October opening ever in its 91-year history, eclipsing the $26.9 million mark established by “The Departed” three years ago.
Earlier in the weekend, after the Spike Jonze-directed film generated $11.9 million on Friday, a number of box-office trackers projected “Wild Things” to exceed the $40 million mark.
“I think many people misread what kind of movie it is,” said Dan Fellman, Warner distribution president, noting that the PG-rated film – primarily marketed to adults – wasn’t going to experience the huge Saturday-afternoon audience bump typically associated with kid-targeted movies.
Last month, for example, Sony’s “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” spiked 62 percent on its first Saturday.
According to Fellman, the Friday performance data also were distorted by the fact that “Wild Things” had generated about $700,000 in midnight shows.
Not that Warner – which co-financed the $70 million movie with Village Roadshow (50 percent stake) and Legendary Pictures (25 percent) -- is in any way disappointed with $32.5 million.
In producing the adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s book, Warner had the difficult challenge of figuring out how to market the movie. With Jonze at the helm, the film catered as much or more to nostalgic Gen-Xers as to kids.
In the end, Warner decided to commit about 70 percent of its promotional media toward adults, Fellman said. The strategy helped the studio draw an audience that was 43 percent 18-and-over.
Reviews were strong, with the film scoring a 71 on Metacritic, and the movie had decent CinemaScore grades, grabbing an A- from the 55 percent of the audience that was under age 25, for example.
“We certainly got a tremendous response from critics, which I think motivated the Spike Jonze fan club,” Fellman noted.
Meanwhile, Overture’s “Law Abiding Citizen” also exceeded its pre-release tracking, which had the $50 million film doing somewhere between $16 million and $18 million.
“We did exit polls of people coming out of the theaters, and these were the best exit polls we’ve ever had,” Davies said.
