Chalk up another weekend #1 for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies as the final “movie” in Peter Jackson‘s trilogy has now made it three in a row. This weekend it dipped only 46% for a three-day total of $21.7 million, bringing its domestic cume to $220.6 million. That’s better than The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and just behind An Unexpected Journey.
In second was the weekend’s lone, wide release newcomer, The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, which managed a decent $15 million (51% of which came from Friday alone), but the “C” CinemaScore suggests we won’t be hearing from this one for too long. As for comparing to the first one, this result may be fine, but it’s still down 27% from the previous. Perhaps Daniel Radcliffe is a bit of a draw?
Woman in Black 2 only managed a fourth place finish with Into the Woods dropping only 38.6% for a $18.7 million second weekend, bringing its cume to $90.8 million.
Playing in limited release this past weekend was J.C. Chandor‘s A Most Violent Year, which managed $188,000 from only four theaters, but it wasn’t nearly enough to top the record-setting per theater feature from last week, Clint Eastwood‘s American Sniper, which was at it again this weekend, racking up $676,909 from four theaters as well. That’s a whopping $169,227 per theater. Could audience enthusiasm for the movie help bolster its chances at a Best Picture nomination?
Speaking of Best Picture nominations, The Imitation Game was playing in only 754 theaters this weekend dropped only 2% and only added seven theaters, bringing in $7.7 million, bringing its cume to $30.4 million. And while the critical response wasn’t too good, Angelina Jolie‘s Unbroken continues to do well, finishing third this weekend while dropping only 40% for an $18.1 million weekend, bringing its cume to $87.6 million.
Then there’s Selma, which I think it might be finally time to drop it from the #1 position on my Best Picture charts as Paramount isn’t doing the film any favors with its theatrical push and it’s come under some serious scrutiny. As of now it’s only playing in 22 theaters where it brought in $633,173 this weekend, bringing its total to just over $2 million.
The Interview expanded its theatrical presence this weekend by adding 250 theaters while at the same time adding additional On Demand outlets, so, to little surprise, it’s box office total dipped to $1 million. It will be interesting to see how it did at home… I’m sure if it continued to do well Sony will let us know, otherwise we’ll be left in the dark.
Next weekend sees the release of Taken 3 as Fox is apparently shutting the door on the franchise at three films. I wonder if they’d decided to change the titles each time out if they would still be stopping at three. After all, Taken 2 could have been called Cell Phone Panic and it looks like this one could be called Kim, They Killed Your Mother and no one would be making jokes about “Who is going to be taken this time?” Just saying…
