The Apparition Fails to Materialize at the Box Office
Steve Barton
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Box Office Mojo
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Remember last year when a slew of horror offerings were released in the months of August and September, and one after another proceeded to flop at the box office? Seeing as how The Apparition went unseen this weekend, it looks like history might be repeating.
In what’s being called the worst box office weekend of 2012, a weekend in which two of the three major new releases finished at the bottom of the top ten (#7 Premium Rush and #10 Hit & Run), The Apparition didn’t even crack the top ten, opening all the way down at 12th, according to Box Office Mojo. Dark Castle’s ghostly PG-13 horror thriller starring supporting actors from the Twilight and Harry Potter franchises drew a pitiful $2.9 million for the weekend. Seems the only people interested in being scared this weekend were the hardcore conservatives that flocked to see the anti-Obama documentary 2016: Obama’s America, a surprise hit that made more than double The Apparition despite only playing on 200 more screens, having considerably less advertising, and being a political polemic with limited appeal.
The Apparition appears to have even more limited appeal given the terrible word of mouth and critical reviews. The Horror Chick’s 2-1/2-knife review here on DC seems to be the most positive sounding review for the film currently batting 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Odds are The Apparition will vanish so quickly nobody will even remember it was released in theaters by the time it appears for a buck at your local Redbox in a few weeks. Warner Brothers probably isn’t too busted up over the failure of The Apparition considering they’ve already severed ties with super producer Joel Silver and his Dark Castle horror production company. No doubt that’s a big reason they dumped the spookfest on only 800 screens. Given how roundly this first true horror offering in two months got rejected, the producers of next week’s The Possession might have reason to feel a bit nervous. (That being said, The Apparition did do pretty well in the per screen average department with $3,648 compared to Expendables 2 at $4,024 and 2016 at $5,718.)
Meanwhile, ParaNorman moved up a notch in its second weekend to the #3 slot despite a 50% drop. The Focus Features 3D stop-motion animated movie took in $8.5 million, bringing its grand total up to about $27 million.
As previously mentioned, next weekend The Possession hopes to not meet the same fate as The Apparition. Could this turn into a replay of last August-September’s horror movie flopapalooza?
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