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Into the Woods breaks away from its usual holdover pack of Unbroken and The Hobbit threequel this weekend, as it was more in the Oscar conversation with three nominations. Into the Woods earned another $6.5 million, and fell 32% despite the entrance of Paddington. After four weekends, the Disney release has earned $114.3 million stateside, and is still just getting started overseas with about $26 million.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies drops significantly this weekend. The Peter Jackson film earned $4.9 million, dropping 48% in the process. With this drop, it will now be a close finish between Desolation of Smaug, which finished with $258.4 million, and The Battle of the Five Armies, which has a domestic gross to date of $244.5 million.

Ninth is Unbroken, which also falls hard this weekend due to no Oscar love. Unbroken earned another $4.3 million, and declined 48%. The $65 million flick from Angelina Jolie has now pulled in $108.6 million and is also getting a slower rollout overseas.

Tenth is Blackhat, our lone opening miss this weekend – and miss it did. The $70 million Michael Mann flick with Chris Hemsworth flopped badly, earning only $4 million for Universal. Critics and audiences hated it (C- Cinemascore), so there is no digging out from this pile of dung. Last year, Universal was riding high in January with Lone Survivor and Ride Along. This year they will start with a huge write down on Blackhat, and almost certainly have another one coming soon in The Seventh Son.

Despite all the hand-wringing that 2015 first quarter box office was going to pale in comparison to 2014, we sure are off to a good start. This weekend, the top 12 films earned $185.5 million, way ahead of last year, when the top 12, led by Ride Along, earned $154.5 million. Next weekend brings three strange titles, including Mortdecai, the odd comedy with Johnny Depp, Universal's The Boy Next Door, with J.Lo getting involved with much younger men, and the aforementioned Strange Magic from George Lucas, which simply seems weird.

Top Ten for Weekend of January 16-18, 2015
Rank	Film	Distributor	Estimated Gross	Weekly Change	Cumulative Gross
1	American Sniper	Warner Bros.	90,205,000	+15466%	93,630,000
2	The Wedding Ringer	Screen Gems	21,000,000	New	21,000,000
3	Paddington	Weinstein Co.	19,287,000	New	19,287,000
4	Taken 3	20th Century Fox	14,050,000	-64%	63,500,000
5	Selma	Paramount	8,300,000	-27%	25,964,000
6	The Imitation Game	Weinstein Co.	7,192,000	No change	50,798,308
7	Into the Woods	Walt Disney	6,542,000	-32%	114,500,000
8	The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies	Warner Bros.	4,860,000	-48%	244,537,000
9	Unbroken	Universal	4,267,280	-48%	108,609,910
10	Blackhat	Universal	4,030,190	New	4,030,190
11	Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb	20th Century Fox	3,825,105	-43%	105,000,000
12	Annie	Sony	1,900,000	-60%	82,000
	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1	Lionsgate	1,825,000	-52%	332,400,000
	The Woman in Black 2	Relativity	1,646,400	-65%	24.8
	Birdman	Fox Searchlight	1,560,000	+164%	28,250,000
	Wild	Fox Searchlight	1,460,000	-45%	33,000,000
	Inherent Vice	Warner Bros	1,160,000	-58%	6,476,000
	Foxcatcher	Sony Classics	1,124,653	+134%	10,049,913
	The Theory of Everything	Focus Features	960,000	+43%	27,277,946
	I	Aascar Film	780,953	New	1,300,000
	Whiplash	Sony Classics	411,556	+169%	6,639,980
	A Most Violent Year	A24	313,404	+160%	804,000
	Still Alice	Sony Classics	212,432	New	212,432
	Mr. Turner	Sony Classics	200,793	-14%	1,592,633
	Leviathan	Sony Classics	54,628	+105%	194,989

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