Doctor Strange' Casts Spell on the Box Office
November 06 2016 - 9:00PM
Dow Jones News
"Doctor Strange" became another box-office superhero for Marvel
Studios—and theater owners hungry for a big-ticket debut—collecting
a robust $85 million over the weekend in the U.S. and Canada.
The story of Dr. Stephen Strange, a neurosurgeon bestowed with
dimension-altering superpowers, isn't as familiar to movie fans as
that of Iron Man or Captain America, but star Benedict Cumberbatch
and an exhaustive marketing campaign contributed to the strong
performance.
The weekend brought more good news for Hollywood, which has been
beset by ho-hum returns in recent weeks. The other new releases,
"Trolls" and "Hacksaw Ridge," followed "Doctor Strange" in second
and third place, respectively, with successful openings of their
own.
"Trolls" drew in an estimated $45.6 million in the U.S. and
Canada, while "Hacksaw Ridge" collected $14.8 million.
The opening of "Doctor Strange" surpasses those of other
single-character origin films from Marvel, including "Ant-Man,"
"Captain America: The First Avenger" and "Thor." It is the 14th
consecutive No. 1 opening from Walt Disney Co.'s Marvel label and
cost about $165 million to produce.
The kaleidoscopic special effects of "Doctor Strange" led to
strong ticket sales for screenings in IMAX Corp. auditoriums and
RealD Inc. 3-D formats. Ticket sales for those pricier screenings
increased as the weekend went on, suggesting word-of-mouth helped
convince moviegoers "they had to see it this way," said Dave
Hollis, Disney's executive vice president of distribution.
"Doctor Strange" has collected an additional $240.4 million from
overseas markets. China led the pack with a $44 million opening.
The movie continues a record-setting year for Disney, which passed
$6 billion at the global box office for the first time in the
company's history.
Like "Doctor Strange," "Trolls" had already banked considerable
grosses abroad before its North American debut this weekend. It has
collected an additional $104 million from overseas markets, a
sturdy start for a movie with a $125 million production budget.
The animated musical is inspired by the neon-hued toy dolls of
past decades and features the voices of Anna Kendrick and Justin
Timberlake.
The robust performances and separate target audiences of the top
two movies put the weekend box office up about 16% from
year-earlier weekend, when a similar mash-up of "Spectre" and "The
Peanuts Movie" opened. "When you can service different parts of the
marketplace, that's when you have a healthy box office. When
there's something for everybody," said Chris Aronson, president of
domestic distribution at Twentieth Century Fox.
"Trolls" is among the last movies produced by DreamWorks
Animations SKG Inc. that will be released by Fox, since the family
entertainment studio was purchased earlier this year by Comcast
Corp.'s NBCUniversal for $3.8 billion. Universal Pictures will
begin releasing DreamWorks titles in 2018. (Fox's parent company,
21st Century Fox, and News Corp., owner of The Wall Street Journal,
share common ownership.)
The weekend's other new release, "Hacksaw Ridge," stars Andrew
Garfield as Desmond T. Doss, the World War II pacifist soldier who
was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving 75 fellow
comrades despite refusing to fire a gun.
The movie, which was independently financed for $40 million and
picked up for distribution by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., is an
unofficial comeback for director Mel Gibson, who was effectively
ostracized from Hollywood for much of the past decade for making
anti-Semitic and racist remarks.
All three new releases have critical and audience support on
their side. Each movie received an "A" grade from opening-weekend
audiences, according to market-research firm CinemaScore.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 06, 2016 20:45 ET (01:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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