Hollywood’s very successful holiday season rolled into the first Friday of 2015, and the fun should continue today, until end-of-break factors kick in on Sunday, when for the first day in nearly 2 weeks numbers will return to normal levels.
OPENINGS: THE WOMAN IN BLACK 2: ANGEL OF DEATH (Relativity) smartly seized an opportunity at the tail end of the holiday, in a genre otherwise absent from multiplexes, and kicked off at the higher end of expectations with $7.8M (that includes $1.5M from Thursday night screenings). It’s likely to flame out quickly, but a $15M weekend will be a fine number for the low-budget acquisition, on which Relativity is on the hook basically just for marketing costs.
HOLDOVERS: The rest of the Top 10 was in line with the rest of the holiday season. THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (New Line/MGM/Warners) led the way with $8.3M, down 46% from last Friday, to give it $207.2M thus far. That keeps it midway between the 17-day totals for An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug, on track for $280M or so at the US box office.
INTO THE WOODS (Disney) had the day’s lead over UNBROKEN (Universal/Legendary), $7.5M to $7.4M, down respectively 39% and 40% from last Friday. Woods may pull a bit farther ahead on Saturday due to family matinees, but by the end of the holidays, both will be in the neighborhood of $90M, hoping that awards season will keep them going into February.
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB (20th) earned $5.9M on Friday (down 20% from last Friday) for a $81.2M total, and it should also top $90M by Sunday. It increased its distance from ANNIE (Columbia/Sony), which fell 25% from last Friday to $4.6M, with $65.8M to date, now unlikely to ever reach $100M.
THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART I (Lionsgate) edged closer to Guardians of the Galaxy with a $3M Friday (down just 15% from last Friday) that put it at $319.2M. It should be at $324M by Sunday, only$9M away from its goal of being 2014’s #1 film in the US.
THE GAMBLER (Paramount) fell 25% to $2.6M for an unexciting $23.4M total, and BIG EYES (Weinstein) had a good hold (down 10%) but at a low $950K, giving it $8.5M.
Harvey Weinstein is doing far better with THE IMITATION GAME (Weinstein), which continues to perform beautifully at a mid-sized 754 theatres. It was actually up 2% from last Friday to $3M, and it could hit $30M by Sunday, with tons of awards-driven expansion likely ahead. WILD (Fox Searchlight) is also holding very well, down 10% from last Friday to $1.7M (at 1361 theatres), and $23M to date.
LIMITED RELEASE: A MOST VIOLENT YEAR (A24) had a very solid start at 4 NY/LA theatres with what should be a $40K weekend per-theatre average. SELMA (Paramount), which added a few theatres from last week for a total of 22, rose 7% from last Friday and should have a weekend average of around $27.5K. Nothing compares, however, to AMERICAN SNIPER (Warners), which held at 4 theatres and managed to rise 18% from last Friday’s already giant levels, which could give it a fantastic $160K average for the weekend. That appears to be the highest 2d weekend average for a live-action film in history (although partly that’s because other huge openings like Grand Budapest Hotel and The Master expanded in their 2d weekends).
NEXT WEEKEND: The holidays are over, every film that hoped to contend for awards has opened, so it’s back to schlock, as Liam Neeson returns with TAKEN 3 (Europa/20th), which claims to be the last of the series. (We’ll see.) Two of the prestige holiday items, Selma and INHERENT VICE (Warners) will expand to national release.
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