As it turned out, ticketbuyers agreed with the critics, giving "Girl on the Train" a weak B- grade at CinemaScore, but not even poor word-of-mouth could completely dissuade viewers primed to see it.
2. Screen Count Is a Big Deal
"Middle School" didn't earn high marks from critics either, landing at 59 percent at Rotten Tomatoes. Of course, kids don't read reviews, but their parents do.
No doubt Lionsgate was hoping to duplicate the success of 20th Century Fox's "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" movies, another tween-age comedy series based on a series of kid-lit best-sellers. But the "Middle School" books don't seem to have as ardent a following. Nor were the just-okay reviews or the very good word-of-mouth (an A- grade at CinemaScore) powerful enough to overcome a saturated marketplace.
Box office analysts took the storm into account and revised their revenue projections down by about 5 percent. Between the hurricane and all the other reasons this weekend's movies gave potential moviegoers not to bother, maybe the theaters should be celebrating that they sold as many tickets as they did.
