Katy Perry looks to have avoided the flop label with concert film “Part of Me,” but the early box office numbers are still unlikely to have too many executives singing.
Update: Katy Perry’s “Part of Me” underperformed over the three-day weekend as well. Its final gross for the weekend, along with numbers for “Savages,” “The Amazing Spider-Man” and more, is here!
According to estimates reported by Deadline, “Katy Perry: Part of Me” grossed about $3 million for a fifth place finish at the box office Thursday. Though that $3 million was at the low end of expectations for the opening day, Paramount is confident that the film will stay on track for an opening weekend in the low teens. And given the low cost–just $12 million–such a weekend would be far from a tragedy.
If the $3 million estimate holds for Thursday, the Katy Perry movie will have slightly outperformed the debut for August 2011’s “Glee: The 3D Concert Movie” ($2.7 million) but paled in comparison to the opening day mark for Justin Bieber’s “Never Say Never,” which scored $12.4 million last February.
Considered a disappointment, the Jonas Brothers’ “3D Concert Experience” opened to $5.0 million on Friday, February 27, 2009.
All three of those films had their formal openings on the traditional Friday, however, so the comparisons are not apples-to-apples.
Speaking to Deadline, a Paramount executive expressed confidence that the film would have “much longer and better legs” than the aforementioned Bieber film, which undoubtedly benefited from the male heartthrob’s more fanatical base.
That is a more aggressive comment than it might seem, however. While Bieber certainly attracted a passionate contingent of fans to the theater on the opening day, the “Never Say Never” film actually held up better than many of its contemporaries, demonstrating better week two retention than the recent “Glee,” Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers concert films.
Word-of-mouth for “Part of Me” should be quite positive–the film achieved a rare A CinemaScore–although strong feedback tends to have less impact on concert movies due to their selective appeal.
