It’s the summer of lowered expectations at the box office.
“Terminator Genisys’’ and “Magic Mike XXL’’ both came in well below projections based on advance audience surveys for the long July Fourth weekend. This season, everything from “Avengers: Age of Ultron’’ to “Tomorrowland’’ to “Ted 2’’ has been coming in under forecast as fewer people than predicted show up for film after film.
The two spectacular exceptions have been “Jurassic World’’ and “Inside Out,’’ both of which broke records when they far exceeded expectations three weeks ago.
Both of these films have continued to perform so well that they snatched the two top slots for the three-day holiday weekend. “Inside Out’’ eked out a narrow win at $29.77 million in final numbers released Monday, edging out “Jurassic World,’’ which narrowly led Sunday’s estimates with a revised total of $29.24 million.
That left debuting “Terminator Genisys’’ with an embarrassing final number of $27 million in third place, and a total North American take of $42.5 million since its Wednesday opening — versus advance predictions it could top $55 million for five days.
“Magic Mike XXL,’’ which was considered to have a shot at pulling off an upset win over the long weekend before it opened last Wednesday, finished with just $12.9 million over three days. That’s well behind the $39 million non-holiday weekend opening of the original “Magic Mike’’ three years ago.
The less gritty sequel to the male-stripper musical had much less plot, no romance — and no Matthew McConaughey. But its final five-day take of $27.9 million actually leaves “Magic Mike XXL’’ still in fine shape, since the reported budget was a tiny $14.9 million.
Actually, there’s a good chance that “Genisys’’ — which suffered from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s string of US flops, poor reviews, poor marketing and its paucity of violence compared to its predecessors — could also end up returning a handsome profit on its reported $155 million budget.
That’s because “Genisys’’ — like many blockbusters these days — was conceived primarily for overseas markets, with North America basically serving as a loss leader. In the past few days it’s collected a total of more than $85 million from overseas markets like Russia, Korea, Mexico, India, Malaysia and Taiwan, where it opened in first place.
Back in the US, overall business was up a bit over last year’s July Fourth weekend, but down 40 percent over two years ago, Variety reports. That puts it near the average for the past 20 years, partly because July Fourth this year fell on a Saturday.
When that happens, multiplex attendance suffers because many people are distracted by barbecues and fireworks on what’s normally the day when the most tickets are sold.