By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --In a scary close finish, the Jake Gyllenhaal crime thriller "Nightcrawler" and the board-game adaptation "Ouija" tied for first at the box office with $10.9 million each over the Halloween weekend.
That was according to estimates Sunday from each film's distributor. Studios can predict a film's Sunday performance with fairly accurate precision. When final figures are announced Monday, one film will likely slightly edge out the other.
For Open Road's low-budget Los Angeles noir "Nightcrawler," it was a strong debut considering its creepy, unconventional protagonist. Gyllenhaal plays an ambulance-chasing man who shoots gory footage for the local news.
The independent, R-rated film was able to capitalize on a weekend the studios were frightened away from. With Halloween falling on a Friday, trick-or-treating cannibalized one of the most lucrative moviegoing nights of the week. Grosses were down 40 percent Friday from the same weekend a year ago, according to box-office tracker Rentrak.
"Most studios know when Halloween falls on a Friday, usually they're not good days," said Universal's distribution head, Nikki Rocco. "People party. It's a holiday, and it's not a moviegoing holiday."
Open Road's estimate for "Nightcrawler" was technically $8,760 above Universal's number for "Ouija." But that tiny margin may not hold up when receipts from Sunday are counted. Other studios had "Ouija" as narrowly edging "Nightcrawler."
"We've seen squeakers over the years but this is one of the closest ones I've ever seen," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Rentrak. "It's a testament to the holding power of 'Ouija.'"
Despite the Halloween night impact, "Ouija" dropped only 45 percent after topping the box office last weekend. That's unusually low for a micro-budget horror film, most of which see interest wane considerably after opening. But Universal opened the horror film a weekend ahead of Halloween to give it a two-week window.
The close contest added drama to one of the quietest movie weekends of the year. Overall business was down 25 percent from the prior year. Said Dergarabedian: "The scariest thing about this weekend was that Halloween fell on a Friday."
Next weekend will be a far different story, though, with the highly anticipated release of Christopher Nolan's sci-fi epic "Interstellar," as well as Disney's animated superhero film "Big Hero 6."
In the meantime, the Brad Pitt World War II tale "Fury" held in third place with $9.1 million in its third week of release. In its fifth week, the Ben Affleck thriller "Gone Girl" also remained in fourth with an additional $8.8 million to its $136.6 million cumulative total to make it the highest grossing release of director David Fincher's career.
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Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, the latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. (tie) "Nightcrawler," $10.9 million ($1.4 million international).
1. (tie) "Ouija," $10.9 million. ($5.7 million international).
3. "Fury," $9.1 million ($14.6 million international).
4. "Gone Girl," $8.8 million ($15.3 million international).
5. "The Book of Life," $8.3 million ($6.1 million international).
6. "John Wick," $8.1 million ($6.6 million international).
7. "St. Vincent," $7.8 million.
8. "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," $6.5 million ($1.8 million international).
9. "The Judge," $3.4 million ($4.3 million international).
10. "Dracula Untold," $3 million ($12.4 million international).
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Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada), according to Rentrak:
1. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," $34.7 million.
2. "The Maze Runner," $23.8 million.
3. "Gone Girl," $15.3 million.
4. "Fury," $14.6 million.
5. "Annabelle," $13.5 million.
6. "Dracula Untold," $12.4 million.
7. "Kung Fu Jungle," $9.3 million.
8. (tie) "John Wick," $6.6 million.
8. (tie) "Lucy," $6.6 million.
10. "The Book of Life," $6.1 million.
From Restoring To Hopefully Preserving Multi-Camera Categories At The Emmys
When Gary Baum, ASC won his fourth career Emmy Award earlier this month, it was especially gratifying in that the honor came in a category--Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Half-Hour Series--that had been restored thanks in part to a grass-roots initiative among cinematographers to drum up entries. Last year the category fell by the wayside when not enough multi-camera entries materialized.
In his acceptance speech, Baum appealed to the Television Academy to keep multi-camera categories alive. He later noted to SHOOT that editors also got their multi-camera recognition back in the Emmy competition this year. Baum hopes that after resurrecting multi-camera categories in 2024, such recognition will be preserved for 2025 and beyond.
A major factor in the decline of multi-camera submissions in 2023 was the move of certain children’s and family programming from the primetime Emmy competition to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ (NATAS) Emmy ceremony. For DPs this meant that multi-camera programs last year were reduced to vying for just one primetime nomination slot in the more general Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour) category. It turned out that this single slot was filled in ‘23 by a Baum-lensed episode of How I Met Your Father (Hulu).
Fast forward to this year’s competition and Baum won for another installment of How I Met Your Father--”Okay Fine, It’s A Hurricane,” which turned out to be the series finale. Two of Baum’s Emmy wins over the years have been for How I Met Your Father, and there’s a certain symmetry to them. His initial win for How I Met Your Father was for the pilot in 2022. So he won Emmys for the very first and last... Read More