OPENINGS: Here’s the crazy thing about the official record-busting $238M weekend estimate for STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Lucasfilm/Disney), which smashed the previous weekend record by more than 12%, and nearly tripled the prior December record: it’s on the conservative side. Flying in the face of most studio behavior in reporting opening weekends, Disney is claiming the 2d-worst Sunday drop of the Top 10, estimating that Force will fall 29%, much steeper than the Sunday drops for mega-busters Jurassic World (18%), The Avengers (18%) and the last Harry Potter (16%). Disney may certainly know something that we don’t, but it’s very possible that the final number released tomorrow will be $5M or so higher than today’s, increasing the mighty reach of a film that has changed all notion of what a year-end release can do. Here’s one amazing factoid out of many: Force‘s $58K per-theatre average at 4134 theatres was the 6th highest of the year–but the other 5 opened in 8 theatres or less.
Internationally, Force had to content itself with merely being the #3 all-time opener, its $279M start falling behind the $316.1M for Jurassic World and the $314M for the final Harry Potter. (However, the Jurassic comparison carries a big asterisk, since $96M of that number came from China, where Force won’t open until next month.) Currently, the worldwide opening for Force is at $517M, slightly behind Jurassic‘s $525M–but if Disney turns out to be lowballing its estimates, that could change.
The real unknown for Force is what happens next. The understanding about December openings has always been that they open moderately and then go on earning enormous amounts through the holidays and beyond, most spectacularly in the cases of Avatar ($77M opening to a $749.8M total) and Titanic ($28.6M opening to a $700.8M total). It seems impossible that Force can perform in a comparable way after that start, but the next two weeks will tell us how much gas is left in its tank, and just how much box office history will be rewritten by the industry’s new Jedi.
Oh yeah, other movies opened this weekend. ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS: THE ROAD CHIP (20th) had the lowest opening of its franchise with $14.4M, far below the $23.2M for Chipwrecked, let alone the $48.2M/$44.3M from the earlier installments. Alvin should percolate through the holidays, since it has no competition for the youngster audience at all (not that parents won’t be taking their kids to the PG-13 Force and the upcoming PG-13 Daddy’s Home), but it may struggle to reach $100M in the US.
SISTERS (Universal) attempted to counterprogram from the R-rated female comedy angle, but even though Force skewed male, Sisters only managed a drab $13.4M, well behind the $17.4M start of the last Tina Fey/Amy Poehler joint effort Baby Mama in April 2008. Sisters will also benefit from the holidays, but may not get much past Baby Mama‘s $60.5M total.
HOLDOVERS: Everything in the Top 10 fell by 50% or more in Force‘s wake. Faring best were THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2 (Lionsgate) and CREED (MGM/New Line/Warners). Mockingjay dropped 51% to $5.7M, and with $254.4M earned to date, it may have trouble reaching $300M unless it can rebound over the holidays. (The first Mockingjay, which of course didn’t have to contend with Star Wars, fell only 37% on the parallel weekend last year.) Creed lost 50% to $5.1M, and with $87.9M to date, it should be able to hit $125M–if it can hold onto its theatres when the Christmas arrivals hit multiplexes.
IN THE HEART OF THE SEA (Village Roadshow/Warners) predictably went down with the ship on its 2d weekend, cratering by 69% to $3.5M, and unlikely to reach $40M in the US (on a production/marketing investment that topped $200M) even with the holidays ahead.
SPOTLIGHT (Open Road), BROOKLYN (Fox Searchlight) and TRUMBO (Bleecker Street) all shed theatres this weekend, but continued running in the same pattern they’ve been in for the past few weeks: Spotlight and Brooklyn are very close in per-theatre average ($1800 vs $2000), while Trumbo lags ($1400).
LIMITED RELEASE: The marquee opening of the weekend was the unsparing SON OF SAUL (Sony Classics), which had an OK $13K average at 3 NY/LA arthouses. In addition, a pair of Indian language films opened nicely: DILWALE (UTV) with $1.9M at 268 theatres, and BAJIRAO MASTANI (Eros) with $1.7M at 304. Holdovers were led by THE BIG SHORT (Paramount), which goes wide on Wednesday and averaged $44K at 8 (down 50% from last week). THE DANISH GIRL (Focus/Universal) expanded to 81 theatres and averaged $6600. YOUTH (Fox Seachlight) widened to 61 and averaged $4K. CAROL (Weinstein) held at 16 and averaged $14K.
NEXT WEEKEND: The holiday blitz. On Wednesday, The Big Short goes wide, and there are limited releases for awards hopefuls 45 YEARS (IFC) and WHERE TO INVADE NEXT? (a new studio that hasn’t been named yet). The real rush arrives on Christmas Day, with wide releases CONCUSSION (Sony), JOY (Annapurna/20th), POINT BREAK (Alcon/Warners) and DADDY’S HOME (Par) joined by limited releases THE REVENANT (20th) and the 70mm “roadshow” engagement of THE HATEFUL 8 (Weinstein). May the Force be with all of them. (OK, maybe not Daddy’s Home.)
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