'In the Heights' disappoints in box office debut

Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal breaks down the numbers on ‘In the Heights’ box office debut.

Video transcript

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ALEXIS CHRISTOFOUROS: "In the Heights" didn't exactly reach the box office heights that some thought it would. The film, based on Lin Manuel Miranda's Tony award-winning 2008 musical, brought in an estimated $11.4 million at the box office, much less than the $15 to $20 million expected. So what happened?

Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal here now with today's Fame and Fortune. Ali?

ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yes, Alexa, it's a pretty big disappointment at the box office. You mentioned it, only 11.4 million over those four days versus the 20 million-plus that was expected. And there could be a few reasons for this, one being the competition from streaming. Now, I did reach out to HBO Max. They said they do not share any streaming data, though they did confirm it was the top performer on the app over the weekend.

Also got some data from mobile analytics platform App Annie who said that HBO Max kept the number one spot among entertainment ads by Google Play downloads in the US. And that continued throughout the weekend. And on Sunday it actually jumped to the number seven app overall.

So certainly some strength on HBO Max. But I think it's important to note that this wasn't really HBO Max's fault. There were some other Warner Brothers titles out there that have performed well at the box office while also being available on the app, "Godzilla vs Kong," "Mortal Kombat," "The Conjuring," just to name a few.

I think the big issue here was that this was a very niche musical. I consider myself a musical girl. And I didn't know much about this show until I heard that it was going to be made into a movie. There were also a lot of not-well-known actors, a lot of up-and-coming actors. So they've really put a lot of pressure on Lin Manuel Miranda and John Chu in order to deliver. They had a really high marketing budget. They were trying really, really hard to get this film out there. But unfortunately, it just fell flat.

That doesn't mean that all is lost, though. It could be a bit of a slow burn, similar to what we saw with "The Greatest Showman." That only garnered around $8 million in its debut and then went on to nab a very significant chunk of change, 174 million domestically and 438 million globally. So still some hope for "In the Heights."

I don't think we're going to see those high numbers. But we'll have to see what happens in the coming days at the box office.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOUROS: We shall see. I have to say, I was one of those first early watchers there on HBO Max. I liked it. I saw it on Broadway too. It didn't need to be 2 and 1/2 hours, though. But--

ALEXANDRA CANAL: It did drag a little bit. But I guess I wanted to fully embrace the Broadway aspect of it. But I agree, it came out too long.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOUROS: Good answer. All right, Ali Canal, thanks so much.