It, too, was a box-office disappointment. In a way, that makes “Blade Runner 2049” the perfect heir to the original film. “But it didn’t play to the numbers everyone thought.” “It was creatively and thematically perfectly executed,” Dergarabedian said. “But does it make it the most commercial? No.”
To me, those are the best type of films,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at comScore. It’s not a ‘Close Encounters,’ it’s not ‘ Star Wars.’ It’s a challenging film. “It’s an intellectually charged, apocalyptic sci-fi story. (Villeneuve attempted to lessen the blow by promoting the credit-less runtime of 152 minutes.) Alcon took the lead on the marketing, which went to great lengths to keep much of the film mysterious. But even it managed broader gender appeal than “Blade Runner 2049.” It drew a 59 percent female audience.īut most were wondering what went wrong with “Blade Runner 2049.” Working against it was a lengthy 163-minute runtime. “My Little Pony: The Movie” opened with $8.8 million for Lionsgate. The Stephen King adaptation has made $603.7 million worldwide. The horror hit “It” followed in third place with $9.7 million in its fifth week. The 20th Century Fox film, which cost $35 million to make, chronicles the budding affection between two strangers whose charter plane crash lands in the mountains. The Kate Winslet- Idris Elba adventure romance “The Mountain Between Us” debuted in second place with $10.1 million. One thing that could help “Blade Runner 2049” is if there’s not much October competition to help drum up positive word of mouth. The tracking and the advance sales indicated that there would be a stronger number.” “We had bigger expectations for the weekend. “I’m disappointed we didn’t have a larger result this weekend on behalf of the owners of the film, Alcon” said Jeff Goldstein, president of domestic distribution for Warner Bros. Representatives for Alcon Entertainment didn’t respond to messages Sunday. Co-founder Andrew Kosove previously called the ambitious “Blade Runner 2049″ ″a chips-in-the-center-of-the-table exercise.”Īnd Alcon - a 45 employee company - seemingly did everything right, turning in a glowingly reviewed film, directed by the sought-after Denis Villeneuve (“Arrival”) and produced by Ridley Scott (who directed the original.) Audiences liked the movie, too, giving it an A- CinemaScore. (“The Blind Side,” ″Prisoners.“) But its blockbuster ambitions -which include flops like “Point Break” and “Transcendence” - have gone rockier.
The 20-year-old Alcon, backed by FedEx founder Fred Smith, has been behind some notable successes with Warner Bros. Sony released the film internationally, where it performed better with $50.2 million in overseas ticket sales over the weekend. Warner Bros., which released the original and maintained rights for any follow-ups, distributed domestically. The opening was a blow most of all to Alcon Entertainment, the production company that split the film’s cost with Sony Pictures. The movie, starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, simply failed to pull in moviegoers beyond fans of the 1982 original. The audience was overwhelmingly male (71 percent) and over the age of 25 (86 percent). The problem “Blade Runner 2049” ran into is clear from opening-weekend data.
#Blade runner 2049 box office movie#
According to studio estimates Sunday, “2049” grossed $31.5 million, a poor start for a movie that cost at least $150 million to make. The big-budget, handsomely crafted sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic opened surprisingly weak at the North American box office. But even though the highly touted sequel had seemingly everything going for it, something didn’t click with audiences. “Blade Runner 2049” had the pedigree, the stars, and the stellar reviews. “I waited this long already to see the sequel, so I can wait another couple months to see it on my 88-inch 4K TV.” Most film geeks had already told us that they were going to wait to see it in the luxury of their own home with killer sound systems. The film had great reviews (we loved it too), but the nearly 3-hour running time may have been a big culprit in the meager ticket sales. It wound up turning into a cult classic as many do and people (including movie studios) forget that many have bombed at the box office before being discovered. History often repeats itself, and it looks like “ Blade Runner 2049″ is following in the footsteps of the original “Blade Runner” which didn’t work so well at the box office.