As usual, Thanksgiving Day itself was down for many films. However, that didn’t keep the holiday’s pair of blockbusters from rewriting the record books.
THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lionsgate) set a new Thanksgiving Day record with $14.9M, tearing past the $13.1M set by Toy Story 2. With the meat of the holiday weekend still to come and $35.6M already earned in 2 days, it now seems likely to pass $100M for the full 5-day weekend, possibly as high as $110M. Apart from easily setting a new holiday record (currently $82.4M for the next-to-last Harry Potter), that would put it close to $300M by Sunday, which would be the 3rd highest 10-day gross in US history, behind only The Avengers ($373.1M) and The Dark Knight ($313.8M). It would also put Catching Fire in good position to pass Iron Man 3‘s $409M as the top-grossing film in the US this year (Iron Man 3 will remain hundreds of millions ahead overseas, despite Catching Fire‘s international bump over The Hunger Games–it’s now at $201M outside the US, just $82M below Hunger Games’ entire overseas gross after 10 days, but nowhere near Iron Man 3‘s $806.4M).
FROZEN (Disney), after a $11.1M Thursday, should set a record of its own this weekend, passing Toy Story 2 for the biggest-ever Thanksgiving opening weekend (and also passing the soon-to-fall Harry Potter overall Thanksgiving record, although it’ll be behind Catching Fire). Yesterday’s holiday number was 37% ahead of the Thanksgiving earnings for Tangled, and with limited competition this holiday season, Frozen could skate to $250M before it’s done.
Nothing else was close to those two. HOMEFRONT held almost even with Wednesday with $1.4M, and might hit $10M for the 5-day weekend. BLACK NATIVITY (Fox Searchlight) showed the limitations of percentage analysis, as it had the biggest holiday bump by far on Thursday, up 55% from Wednesday, but remained at a tiny $680K in 1516 theaters, unlikely to reach $5M by Sunday. OLDBOY (FilmDistrict) fell 14% from its pathetic Wednesday to $180K and may not even get to $1.5M at 583 theatres over the 5-day holiday.
Expansions stayed very mild. THE BOOK THIEF (20th) rose 14% on Thanksgiving to $825K at 1234 theatres, with $7M likely by Sunday. PHILOMENA (Weinstein) was similarly up 15% at 753 theatres to $434K, perhaps $3.5M for the 5-day weekend. NEBRASKA (Paramount) was up 11% to $90K at 102 theatres, aiming at $750K by Sunday.
The only holdovers doing any business were THOR: THE DARK WORLD (Disney), down 13% for the day to $2M (it should be at close to $185M by the end of the weekend, still likely to hit $200M in the US), DELIVERY MAN (DreamWorks/Disney) up 9% for $1.4M, which will still have it at no more than $20M total by Sunday, and THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY (Universal), up 13% to $1.4M, with a total over $60M by Sunday.
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