As is traditional, the box office for all movies aimed at young people or families slumped on Thanksgiving Day. That kept THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART I (Lionsgate) easily on top, down 24% from Wednesday to $11.1M. That represented a better hold than the 28% Thanksgiving drop for Catching Fire, although in actual numbers last year’s Hunger Games was still comfortably ahead at $15M for the holiday. Mockingjay is on track for a $55M weekend, and $80M+ for the 5-day holiday, which will put it near $225M in the US by Sunday, about $70M (25%) below Catching Fire.
THE PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR (DreamWorks Animation/20th) was hit hard by the holiday, down 37% from Wednesday to $4M. That’s worse than other recent Thanksgiving drops for family openings (27% for Frozen, 32% for Tangled, 11% for The Muppets, 23% for DreamWorks’ own flop Rise of the Guardians), and although it could certainly rebound over the rest of the weekend, at the moment it’s looking like $25M Fri-Sun and $35M for the 5-day opening, which could indicate another disappointing box office return for a studio that badly needed a win. More bad news for the Penguins: BIG HERO 6 (Disney), although also hit by the holiday, went down just 27% on Thursday, and its $3.1M daily take wasn’t much lower than the Penguins revenue, even though Big Hero has already been in theatres for 3 full weeks.
HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 (New Line/Warners), despite being in a less family-friendly genre, dropped 28% from its opening day to $3.1M. There’s not much history for R-rated comedies opening over this holiday, but the number isn’t promising, and Horrible 2 seems to be headed for an uninspiring $12M 3-day weekend ($20M over 5 days). Meanwhile, DUMB AND DUMBER TO (Red Granite/Universal) fell 20% on Thursday to $1.5M and should have a $5M/$7M holiday.
Adult-oriented titles held better. INTERSTELLAR (Paramount/Warners) slipped just 4% on Thursday to $3M, headed for a $14M/$20M holiday. THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING (Focus/Universal) was even more impressive, rising 17% on Thursday to $725K in just 749 theatres–better than the 15% increase for last year’s Thanksgiving art-house expansion Philomena–and headed for a 3-day weekend that would give it a fair $7K per-theatre average. After an 8% Thursday increase, BIRDMAN (Fox Searchlight) should have a $2500 3-day weekend per-theatre average at 705.
In more limited release, FOXCATCHER (Sony Classics) was less impressive, dropping 17% on Thursday at its 71 theatres, and on its way to an OK 3-day weekend average of $10K, which would be considerably below the $16K average Boyhood had at 107 theatres.
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