Breakout Film 42 is Expected to Take Number One Box Office Spot

By: Amanda Anderson-Niles

When it comes to movies that feature the story of someone who made black history, it’s a well-known fact that these kinds of films stand the risk to get ignored by mainstream America and underperform at the box office. The good news is this surely isn’t the case with 42, the new film that debuted this weekend that tells the story of famed baseball player Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to become a Major League Baseball player in the modern era. Of course with any film that highlights the civil rights struggles of African-Americans, many expected the movie to struggle this weekend, especially with the debut of he fifth installment to the Scary Movie franchise. However, the early numbers suggest the film is posed to take the number one spot at the box office.

Here a snippet of the report from Deadline:

“Exit polling for Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros’ 42 showed the audience composition was males 48%/females 52%; under age 25 was 17%, age 25 and up 83% (with a predominantly older audience), and the main reason for attending the movie was subject matter 84%. A Warner Bros exec tells me: “While we do not poll race breakdown, I can tell you we performed extremely well in all the large urban markets. But the highest grossing theaters were the country’s most commercial screens.”

“…The Jackie Robinson biopic 42 (3,003 theaters) nicely overperformed tracking which was in the mid-teens for an original movie about race and baseball with no hot stars. (Granted Harrison Ford is a legend but not box office nowadays.) The moderately budgeted film ($38M) received an ‘A+’ CinemaScore which will help word of mouth. Grosses on MLB’s Jackie Robinson Day – which is April 15 – when every player wears Robinson’s #42, could even stay level because of the attention. In addition to the $38M marketing spend, the film has generated a ton of national media and awareness that didn’t cost any money.”

Now I did happen to catch the movie during my Saturday night date with my husband, and I have to say we absolutely loved it. The cast has a mix of big names to lesser known actors and actresses, but the impressive performances by Chadwick Boseman (Jackie Robinson), Harrison Ford (Branch Rickey) and Nicole Beharie (Rachel Isum Robinson) made the film that more special. It’s definitely worth a watch and we’d be shocked if you didn’t walk away as impressed as we did.

In related news, Scary Movie 5 is said to be struggling (Katt Williams), while Marlon Wayans’ A Haunted House not only won big in the theatres last year, but just got the greenlight for a sequel. Looks like the Scary Movie franchise can’t survive without the Wayans brothers.