This weekend was a shocker at the box-office as Clint Eastwood proved you don’t need a cape and tights to have a blockbuster. Eastwood’s film, American Sniper, had the biggest January opening in the history cinema.
Many wonder how such a grounded film could attract such a large audience. American Sniper had a broad reach as the older generation trusts in Eastwood’s work. It also attracted the more high-brow crowd due its recent six Academy Award nominations, as well as readers of the book that the movie is based on. What industry experts didn’t anticipate was the power of Call of Duty. The videogame series is the biggest selling game of the year and one of the biggest franchises in history. American Sniper was able to tap into the crowd that grew up playing sniper simulations, which was unaccounted for. The film made an astounding $89.5 million dollars in its opening weekend shocking the world. The unlikely success, this is the second largest R-rated opening ever, is another sign that it is profitable to open a movie at any time of the year.
The Wedding Ringer had an underwhelming opening as the Kevin Hart vehicle made an estimated $21 million dollars over the weekend. Surely it was tracking for a slightly higher opening as last year Kevin Hart’s Ride Along opened to $41 million dollars. That was the previous largest January opening, which puts American Sniper’s immense opening in perspective. The Wedding Ringer was the other R-rated offering available and surely some of its adult audience was usurped by the more mature drama in American Sniper.
In its first week of release, the family film Paddington, had a decent opening with $19.2 million dollars. The movie, based on the immensely popular series of children’s books, has been receiving stellar reviews so expect to see it hang around the top ten for some time.
Liam Neeson’s Taken 3 had a stark drop down from first to fourth place. It seems most people who wanted to see the third film in the series, got it out of their system opening weekend. It grossed $14 million dollars in its second week of release.
Selma continued to stay in the top five spots as it made $8.3 million dollars over the MLK holiday weekend. The film also continues to stay in the public consciousness as there have been many talks of the star David Ayelowo and director Ava DuVernay being snubbed for Academy Award nominations.
Here is the complete box-office breakdown for the weekend of January 16-18:
| TW | LW | Title (click to view) | Studio | Weekend Gross | % Change | Theater Count /Change | Average | Total Gross | Budget* | Week # | |
| 1 | 21 | American Sniper | WB | $89,505,000 | +15,344.7% | 3,555 | +3,551 | $25,177 | $92,930,000 | $58.8 | 4 |
| 2 | N | The Wedding Ringer | SGem | $21,000,000 | – | 3,003 | – | $6,993 | $21,000,000 | $23 | 1 |
| 3 | N | Paddington | W/Dim. | $19,287,000 | – | 3,303 | – | $5,839 | $19,287,000 | – | 1 |
| 4 | 1 | Taken 3 | Fox | $14,050,000 | -64.2% | 3,594 | – | $3,909 | $62,837,000 | $48 | 2 |
| 5 | 2 | Selma | Par. | $8,300,000 | -26.6% | 2,235 | +56 | $3,714 | $25,964,000 | $20 | 4 |
| 6 | 6 | The Imitation Game | Wein. | $7,192,000 | -0.3% | 1,611 | +45 | $4,464 | $50,798,000 | – | 8 |
| 7 | 3 | Into the Woods | BV | $6,542,000 | -31.5% | 2,758 | -75 | $2,372 | $114,296,000 | $50 | 4 |
| 8 | 4 | The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies | WB | $4,895,000 | -47.8% | 2,220 | -1,182 | $2,205 | $244,572,000 | – | 5 |
| 9 | 5 | Unbroken | Uni. | $4,267,000 | -47.8% | 2,602 | -699 | $1,640 | $108,610,000 | $65 | 4 |
| 10 | N | Blackhat | Uni. | $4,030,000 | – | 2,567 | – | $1,570 | $4,030,000 | $70 | 1 |
What did you catch over the weekend? Was it any good? Let us know on the comment boards, , , and !
Source: Box Office Mojo