Box Office Report: The Devil Implodes

Steve Barton   |  

Jan 16, 2012

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Just how big will the second week drop be? That’s the multi-million dollar question everyone’s been waiting to have answered since The Devil Inside opened to a surprising $34.5 million last weekend and reports coast-to-coast of audiences reacting to the film with a level of open hostility rarely seen in this day and age. The answer: huge.

Big second week drop-offs are nothing new for horror movies. Platinum Dunes’ Friday the 13th reboot famously opened huge its first week and dropped a whopping 70% its second, and its word-of-mouth didn’t include stories of entire theaters booing the film off-screen, audience members throwing stuff at the screen and demanding refunds, or even as has been reported in one instance, a lady so angry over the ending she spat on the theater floor in rage.

Note to future filmmakers: Never end your movie abruptly and then splash a url on the screen prompting the audience to go there to find out more unless the web address is for a website that offers to refund movie tickets.

Last weekend The Devil Inside shocked Hollywood insiders with a $17 million Friday opening. A week and an “F” Cinemascore audience rating later, the film’s second Friday did a paltry $2.6 million, down a cataclysmic 84%, as reported by Deadline Hollywood. Last weekend it shot to number one with $34.5 million. This weekend it plummeted to sixth place with only $7.9 million, a staggering decline of 76% from week one to week two.

Regardless, the movie cost less than a million to make and Paramount acquired it for only about a million. The studio is assured a tidy profit and the makers of this much maligned movie got a 3-picture deal with Paramount out of it. So, really, the only people who lost out on this endeavor were the angry patrons that felt ripped off when it was over and Uncle Creepy for all the grief we gave him on Dinner for Fiends for giving it its first (and one of its only) positive reviews.

Next weekend: Kate Beckinsale once again slithers into a tight leather jumpsuit as werewolves and vampires battle it out in 3D for what looks to be the most Resident Evil-ish Underworld sequel yet.

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