The decision by Warner Bros. to open The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies on Wednesday makes it difficult to directly compare its opening to the previous two installments, both of which opened on Fridays over the last couple of years. The three-day $54.7 million for Five Armies is added to its Wednesday and Thursday showings, giving the film a five-day cume of $89.1 million. Comparatively, An Unexpected Journey did $84.6 million in its first three days and Desolation of Smaug did $73.6 million, so by those numbers it does stand to assume the Hobbit balloon is losing air.
Opening day audiences gave the film an “A-” CinemaScore, which will make next weekend’s numbers interesting. The last two films dropped 56-57% in their second weekends, but neither were facing Christmas in the middle of the week, which pretty much, once again, means comparisons are out the window as I expect a steep drop next weekend, primarily because I expect a lot of people to head out on Christmas day to watch this final installment.
Battle of the Five Armies also had quite a bit of competition starting with second place finisher Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, finishing the three-day with $17.1 million and a “B+” CinemaScore. This is the smallest opening for a film in the Night at the Museum franchise by a wide margin. The first one brought in $30.4 million back in 2006 and the sequel was huge with a $54.1 million opening in 2009. Seems the bloom is off this rose.
In third is the new release Annie starring Quvenzhane Wallis, which scored $15.8 million amid some truly awful reviews, ours included. The “A-” CinemaScore suggests audiences enjoyed it well enough and it should do good business all week.
Last weekend’s #1 finisher, Exodus: Gods and Kings, didn’t really hold up too well scoring what some may say a rather ironic drop percentage of 66.6%. Granted, that will change once actuals arrive eliminating the fun of Beelzebub having anything to do with the film’s box office success or lack thereof as the Ridley Scott Biblical epic only scored $8.1 million in its second weekend.
Reese Witherspoon‘s Wild finally went wide and cracked the top ten. Playing in 1,061 theaters the film mustered $4.1 million.
Heading toward Christmas Day, this next week will see the wide release of Angelina Jolie‘s Unbroken as well as Into the Woods. Limited releases will include Selma, American Sniper and Big Eyes.
