According to Deadline’s Sunday box office report, Glee 3D The Concert Movie, which opened wide in movie theaters this weekend, was a disaster. The movie opened in only 6th place Friday, with $2.5, then Saturday plunged -37% for just $1.7M which took the film out of the Top 10 completely.
The blow of it’s $5.7 weekend from 2040 theaters was softened by it’s low budget–around $9.5M to $9.7M, according to an email to Deadline from Glee co-creator, Ryan Murphy, “That’s compared to the Bieber film which was around $14 million I believe. So the risk [was] very very low. No matter what it will be a money maker for Fox. I am proud of it.”
Murphy and Fox executives were “befuddled” the film didn’t do better, because it was given an ‘A+’ CinemaScore from audiences under age 25. “The CinemaScores were excellent. They don’t sync up with the results, ” one Fox TV exec emailed Deadline. Fox thought the film “would at least reach double-digits, crack the Top 5 for the weekend, and perform respectably like the other concert movies.”
I saw the film yesterday (I’m working on a review. I didn’t like it) and there were only a handful of people at the matinee I attended. Part of the problem, I think, is that the film is advertised as one thing, but really is something very different. Murphy told Deadline, that “by design, the movie wasn’t just a big-screen version of the TV show: instead it’s about three young people who say that Glee helped them live better lives and overcome struggles with their personal stories cut against 20 positive message songs.”
You’d never catch that plot from the promos, which featured Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester telling people to stay home because the movie sucks. A FOX exec said, “I think it was a shitty campaign that did not effectively communicate what the movie was or that the people who had seen it reviewed it positively, ” Another exec told Deadline, “I think the feature company took a very laid-back approach, feeling their only job was to alert the core fans, and that’s not enough to fill seats.”
Honestly, I don’t think Glee fans want to see a film focused on their fellow fans. They want to see the characters they’ve come to know and love. If there’d been more backstage interviews and more music, maybe the film would have fared better. Or not–maybe the film’s poor performance is a sign the Glee train is slowing down.
