Friday Box Office: Not a Good Friday for Johnny Depp's 'Transcendence'
Johnny Depp continues his eternal struggle to have an international hit that has nothing to do with pirates or Wonderland.
Transcendence, the psychological sci-fi drama, is currently in the process of bombing in its Easter weekend premiere. The movie, which cost $100 million to make, came in at No. 4 on Good Friday with a cringeworthy opening-day gross of $4.8 million. This makes it three bombs in a row for Depp, after Dark Shadows and The Lone Ranger, as Transcendence is getting spanked by everything from Rio 2 to independent Christian film Heaven Is For Real.
Rio 2 brought in $9.7 million on Friday, which places it neck-and-neck with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which also grossed $9.7 million. However, Captain America is projected by insiders to pull ahead and finish the weekend with $25 million vs. Rio 2's $23 million.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Meanwhile, Heaven Is For Real continues the recent resurgence for Christian films, joining Son of God and God's Not Dead as recent Top 10 box office performers. The film, starring Greg Kinnear, came in at No. 3 Friday with a tremendous $7.8 million. Heaven Is For Real is projected to bring in $20 million for the weekend, bringing its five-day gross to $27 million, which is really pretty terrific for a film that had such a minimal ad campaign. Whether it's simply a byproduct of the Easter holiday, or the strong business the movie is doing in the Heartland, the simple fact is that Heaven Is For Real is landing with mainstream audiences and defeating big budget films with three times the advertising budget. It's even beating a brand new comedy that was expected to do solid business, as Haunted House 2 only brought in approximately $4 million to place No. 5 Friday. This makes for a projected three-day debut of between $9-$11 million, which is less than the $18 million debut of the first film in the comedy-horror franchise. However, Haunted House 2 still beat out the last of our newcomers this weekend: Disney's latest nature documentary Bears, which came in at No. 9 on Friday with $2.3 million for a projected weekend gross of about $5 million. This has to be considered a bit of a disappointment when you consider that previous DisneyNature documentaries Earth and Oceans opened at #1 on their opening days (although both placed at #5 and #8 overall, respectively, in their opening weekends).
Of course, everything could change in the next two days. I'll be back tomorrow with the Saturday box office, and on Monday with the final numbers for the weekend box office grosses.