OPENINGS: After Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, and now THE LEGO MOVIE (Warners), writer/directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller will be able to do just about anything they want: all 3 of their projects have not only been smash hits, but they’ve greatly overperformed expectations, spawning 3 new franchises in a row. (Along the way, they directed the best-regarded comedy pilot of this TV season, for Brooklyn Nine-Nine.) That consistency of success is a special kind of gold in Hollywood. This weekend’s $69.1M weekend for Lego is just the beginning in the US, and the film added $18.1M overseas with openings in 34 mostly smallish overseas markets.
All things considered, THE MONUMENTS MEN (Sony/20th) can breathe a sigh of relief after a $22.7M opening that followed reviews that were blah or worse. The decision to hold off the opening from its originally scheduled Christmas release got a lot of negative attention at the time, but it’s been validated, and while the film is unlikely to be a big moneymaker, its setting and star power should help it overseas.
VAMPIRE ACADEMY (Weinstein) probably should have gone straight to VOD, where the marketing costs are relatively slim. Its $4.1M opening will lead to ink as red as its characters’ form of sustenance.
2 major films have opened overseas before arriving in the US. ROBOCOP (Sony/MGM) is now in 47 markets and made $20.2M this weekend ($28.7M total), not a particularly impressive number considering that it’s in major territories like Australia, Germany, Italy and the UK. MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN (DreamWorks Animation/20th) is off to a promising start in only the UK at $6.6M.
HOLDOVERS: Because of last week’s Super Bowl Sunday, all weekend comparisons for films that managed to hold onto their theatres look especially good this week. So RIDE ALONG (Universal) is down a mere 22% to $9.4M, LONE SURVIVOR (Universal) is down 25% to $5.3M, and even the flop THAT AWKWARD MOMENT (Focus/Universal) dropped just 37% to $5.5M. The major exception: THE NUT JOB (Open Road) tumbled with Lego‘s arrival, down 48% to $3.8M.
FROZEN (Disney) had no such trouble, down 23% to $6.9M. It’s now made $368.7M in the US, pushing it past Despicable Me 2 as the top animated 2013 release in this country (and behind only Catching Fire and Iron Man 3 overall). Overseas, it added $24M to its total ($13.7M from China), and with its Japan opening still to come, it’s at $913M worldwide, and has a real chance of becoming only the 2d animated movie in history (with Toy Story 3) to reach $1B.
All of the Best Picture Oscar nominees are gone from the Top 10, with AMERICAN HUSTLE (Sony) leading the pack at #11, down 26% for the weekend to $3.1M and a $138.2M total, 2d only to the $266.5M for Gravity. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (Paramount/Red Granite) is still doing well, down 24% to $2.6M and a $107.9M total. Worldwide, the comparison is somewhat different, with Hustle at $189.9M, Wolf at $268.2M, and Gravity at $696.5M.
LIMITED RELEASE: The closest thing to a major opening this weekend was the 3 1/2-hour Holocaust documentary THE LAST OF THE UNJUST (Cohen Media), which had a $1800 average at 8 theatres. THE PAST (Sony Classics) expanded to 67 theatres with a $1600 average. GLORIA (Roadside) was more promising, with a $3900 average after expansion to 64 theatres.
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