USA Today‘s Scott Bowles is reporting that despite the Snakes on a Plane cult following, “the R-rated movie is tracking softly” and none of the 265 AMC theatres that showed the New Line thriller last night at 10 pm “sold out of [their] advance tickets…fans weren’t exactly camping out to see the first screening.”
I’ve been talking about very high tracking negatives all along (i.e., the “definitely not interested” percentage has been over 20%). I heard yesterday that the positive interest factors had actually downticked, but take this with a grain. The upside is that the movie isn’t bad.
Variety‘s Ben Fritz and Dave McNary have written that Snakes “is tracking like a normal late-summer horror film, which would indicate a bow in the high teens. But studio is hoping all the hype and buzz could translate into something much bigger, possibly as high as the 30s.” New Line is showing Snakes at 3555 situations.
One of my regulars said this morning that Snakes has been tracking like Dimension’s Pulse which opened last weekend in 2323 theatres and took in $8,203.822. (The total to date is $10,557,845.) With Snakes playing in roughly 1200 more theatres, Variety‘s forecast of a weekend total in the mid to high teens seems more likely than a Sunday-night tally in the 20s, much less the 30s.
Another guy says Snakes is doing better than Pulse. which had only teenaged girls to count on. Whereas teen aged males are seriously onto seeing Snakes, etc. I still say mid teens.