The Christmas holiday along with a few new releases, revitalized the box-office this past weekend. Several titles managed to tread water while there were a couple of impressive debuts. It is probable that a few films benefited from the absence of The Interview as well.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies held on to a large majority of last week’s audience, as the film lost less than 25% of the previous week’s crowds. This is a great sign for the last installment of the trilogy as it goes into the last weekend of the year.
In its first week of release, the Angelina Jolie directed historical drama, Unbroken, debuted in second place with $31.7 million dollars. This total surpassed industry expectations and further solidifies Jolie as a director on the rise.
Disney’s musical adaptation of Into the Woods had a great start to its theatrical run as well, pulling $31 million dollars. It also is a good test on the limits of counter-programming. In addition to The Hobbit, it seems that there is room in the film market for two fantasy movies at once. As long as the sub-genres, in this case fantasy-action and fantasy-musicals, do not overlap. This bodes well for the future, as the superhero genre will be dominant. Hopefully studios are taking note on how to layer the genre and make each movie a unique experience and choice for ticket buyers.
Night at the Museum had a huge upswing as its audience actually increased 20% from the previous weekend. The movie was added to an additional 129 theaters, perhaps another beneficiary of The Interview. This is a bit of good news for the third and final installment, however the movie has severely underperformed overall.
Annie came in fifth place and actually made more this weekend than its debut weekend. This is a sign that while critical reception for the film has been negative, that there is word-of-mouth buzz that is keeping the movie relevant at the box-office.
Here is the complete box-office breakdown for the weekend of 12/26-12/28:
| TW | LW | Title (click to view) | Studio | Weekend Gross | % Change | Theater Count /Change | Average | Total Gross | Budget* | Week # | |
| 1 | 1 | The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies | WB | $41,420,000 | -24.3% | 3,875 | – | $10,689 | $168,522,000 | – | 2 |
| 2 | N | Unbroken | Uni. | $31,748,000 | – | 3,131 | – | $10,140 | $47,341,000 | – | 1 |
| 3 | N | Into the Woods | BV | $31,021,000 | – | 2,440 | – | $12,714 | $46,105,000 | – | 1 |
| 4 | 2 | Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb | Fox | $20,600,000 | +20.5% | 3,914 | +129 | $5,263 | $55,307,000 | $127 | 2 |
| 5 | 3 | Annie (2014) | Sony | $16,600,000 | +4.7% | 3,197 | +81 | $5,192 | $45,835,000 | $65 | 2 |
| 6 | 5 | The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 | LGF | $10,000,000 | +26.9% | 2,793 | -381 | $3,580 | $306,656,000 | $125 | 6 |
| 7 | N | The Gambler | Par. | $9,300,000 | – | 2,478 | – | $3,753 | $14,300,000 | $25 | 1 |
| 8 | 16 | The Imitation Game | Wein. | $7,930,000 | +823.6% | 747 | +713 | $10,616 | $14,631,000 | – | 5 |
| 9 | 4 | Exodus: Gods and Kings | Fox | $6,750,000 | -16.7% | 3,002 | -501 | $2,249 | $52,517,000 | $140 | 3 |
| 10 | 6 | Wild (2014) | FoxS | $5,415,000 | +31.6% | 1,285 | +224 | $4,214 | $16,364,000 | – | 4 |
What did you catch over the weekend? Was it any good? Let us know on the comment boards, , , and !
Source: Box Office Mojo