‘The Devil Inside’ shocks box office back to life
Horror movie pulls in $34.5M
Hollywood exorcised its box-office demons, at least for a weekend, with a lowbudget horror film that got 2012 off to a surprisingly brisk start.
Despite reviews that would frighten any Hollywood producer (and a sharply divided reaction from audiences), the $1 million The Devil Inside scared up $34.5 million, according to studio estimates from Hollywood.com.
The debut was more than twice what most analysts expected and helped propel the first full weekend of 2012 nearly 30% ahead of the same weekend last year. Final figures are due today.
The no-name horror film overtook big-name holdovers — an impressive feat given that many fans agreed with critics that the microbudget movie was a stinker.
About 19% of audiences gave the film an F, says survey firm Cinemascore. According to amalgam site Rottentomatoes.com, only 57% of audiences said they enjoyed the movie. (Paying audiences rarely score a movie below 60%.) Critics were savage: Only 7% gave the picture a thumbs-up, Rottentomatoes.com says.
In a press release, distrib- utor Paramount Pictures acknowledges that audiences are “both loving it and also being being disturbed by it.”
“The first shocker of the year,” says Tim Briody of Boxofficeprophets.com. “Apparently every single one of us saw The Devil Inside.”
The sharp division of opinion (16% gave the movie an A, Paramount points out) might not hurt Devil’s grosses, as horror films do most of their business on opening weekend.
Dave Lewis of Hitfix.com calls Devil’s haul “further proof that audiences love a good post-holiday scare.”
Devil supplanted Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol from its two-week perch at No. 1. The Tom Cruise sequel took second place with $20.5 million, lifting its total to $170.2 million.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was third with $14.1 million, followed by David Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with $11.3 million. The adaptation has done $76.8 million in four weeks.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked spent its third week in the top five with $9.5 million. The cartoon has done $111.6 million.