It’s another weekend at the top of the box office for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, which is down only 24% from its opening weekend with $41.4 million over the three day after a third place finish on Christmas Day with $13.1 million. The pic is now up to $168.5 million after just 12 days in theaters.
It finished third on Christmas day behind a pair of new releases, both of which fell to second and third over the weekend, first among those being Angelina Jolie‘s Unbroken, which was your Christmas day victor taking in $15.5 million. Over the three-day it managed $31.7 million to go with its “A-” CinemaScore. This will be an interesting one to continue to track to see just how good that word of mouth can be. I expect it to score a Best Picture Oscar nomination, but that 51% RottenTomatoes score certainly won’t help if it’s looking for buzz from the critical community.
In third is Disney’s musical Into the Woods, sporting a $60 million budget and bringing in an impressive $46.1 million to go with a not-so-strong “B” CinemaScore, though I’d say given Mike’s “A-” review and the fact I supremely disliked this movie, it’s clear it’s going to endure a love/hate relationship with the audience so I wouldn’t put too much stock in that rating. The big tell will be next weekend once we see how it holds over.
Christmas day opener, The Gambler scored $9.3 million over the three-day, $14.3 million including Christmas. The pic, which is budgeted at only $25 million received mixed reviews and a “C+” CinemaScore, which seems to jibe with the impressions I heard from a few people that saw it.
Best Picture contender The Imitation Game had a nice showing this weekend, bringing in $7.9 million from only 747 theaters. That’s a $10,575 per theater average for a film that’s got a very good chance of sticking around and taking home that Best Picture Oscar should Paramount continue to slow play Selma, which was in only 19 theaters this weekend and is estimated to have made $590,000 over the three day and $912,000 since Christmas.
Meanwhile, The Interview had its online debut this week after the long debate over will it or won’t it be released? Despite being available online, the comedy also played in 331 theaters this weekend where it managed $1.8 million over the three day weekend and $2.8 million since Christmas, a total I’d have to say is decent, but will this movie be remembered by next weekend or was this simply a case of “We won’t let the terrorists win?”
Comparatively, Tim Burton‘s Big Eyes wasn’t able to attract much of a crowd and for those of you that avoided it, congrats, because it’s terrible. The film played in 1,307 theaters and could only manage $2.9 million over the weekend, $2,218 per. Hell, CinemaScore didn’t even bother to question the audience on their thoughts.
One movie that had a fantastic showing in limited theaters was Clint Eastwood‘s American Sniper, bringing in $610,000 from just four theaters for a $152,000 per theater average. Too bad the movie is no good. Then again, what do I know, audiences that saw it gave it an “A+” CinemaScore. Perhaps this one has more Oscar juice than I presumed? Hell, it has a 74% RottenTomatoes score and Warner is clearly expecting big things, holding off on a wide release until one day after Oscar nominations are announced.
Next week sees the lone wide release of The Woman in Black: Angel of Death, ushering in the new year and hoping to be that low budgeted horror film to kick things off with a bang. I’m not expecting much.
NOTE: There were no box office predictions this week, which is the reason there are no results listed below. The predictions will return next week with the first chance to get a jump start on a whole new year of predictions.
