Weekend Wrap-Up
Mockingjay 2 Closes The Hunger Games With Its Lowest Open
By John Hamann
November 22, 2015
The Secret in Their Eyes is fifth. The under-marketed Julia Roberts/Nicole Kidman/Chiwetel Ejiofor revenge drama drifted in the rubble a bit this weekend, as it couldn’t compete with the bigger, splashier films. The Secret in Their Eyes earned only $6.6 million this weekend, as reviews were less than stellar at 42% fresh, and the Cinemascore came in at a dreadful B-. I have a feeling that upstart distributor STX Entertainment knew they didn’t have a winner, and chose to drop it in the pre-Thanksgiving weekend to get whatever they could out of this release. The good news is that the film cost less than $20 million to make, and it could do some decent business overseas given the stars involved. Overall, though, this is a fairly hefty disappointment, as it crosses another potential Oscar chaser off the list.
Love the Coopers, last weekend’s debuting Christmas comedy, took it from both The Hunger Games and The Night Before this weekend. It earned only $3.9 million and fell a wild 53%. Made for $17 million, this CBS Films release has a cumulative total so far of $14.9 million.
That puts The Martian down to seventh in its eighth weekend. This time around, the Matt Damon film earned another $3.7 million and declined 45%. To date, The Martian has earned a powerful $213 million stateside and $270 million overseas, all against a $108 million budget.
Spotlight, which earned $1.4 million from 61 screens last weekend, expands to 598 venues for Open Road this weekend. The additional screens pushed the weekend gross up to $3.6 million, good for an increase over last weekend of 166%. This one cost $20 million to make, and is my current favorite for Best Picture, but it will need to earn more at the box office to increase its relevance. So far, it has picked up $5.9 million and will likely expand further in the weekends to come.
Ninth is The 33, which also gets punched this weekend. The 33 pulled in only $2.2 million, dropped a significant 61%, and has a running total of only $9.9 million. Tenth is Bridge of Spies, which likely spends its last weekend in the top ten. It took in $1.9 million this weekend, was off 54%, and has a running total of $65.2 million against a budget of $40 million.
In limited release this weekend, Fox Searchlight pushed Brooklyn up to 111 screens, and it earned $1.2 million. It had a venue average of $10,360. Carol, the new Cate Blanchett flick, debuted on four screens and earned $248,149, giving it a strong venue average of $62,037.
Overall this weekend, the box office could not keep up with the heights of previous pre-Thanksgiving weekends, as this Hunger Games fell short of previous teen titans released over the same frame. The top 12 this weekend still earned a respectable $163.6million, but that’s well off the $186.7 million pulled in last year, when Mockingjay Part 1 was in theaters.
Next weekend brings another interesting frame to the box office, as we have three films that aren’t true sequels, but all have significant predecessors. Likely to win the weekend is The Good Dinosaur, the latest in a line of Pixar movies, with this one coming off the summer success of Inside Out; Creed, the latest in the Rocky saga opens; and Victor Frankenstein, the sixth big screen retelling of the monster story.
| 1 |
Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt. 2 |
Lionsgate |
$101,025,000 |
New |
$101,025,000 |
| 2 |
Spectre |
Sony |
$14,600,000 |
- 57% |
$153,703,000 |
| 3 |
The Peanuts Movie |
Fox |
$12,800,000 |
- 47% |
$98,943,000 |
| 4 |
The Night Before |
Sony |
$10,100,000 |
New |
$10,100,000 |
| 5 |
Secret In Their Eyes |
Stx Entertainment |
$6,633,000 |
New |
$6,633,000 |
| 6 |
Love the Coopers |
Lionsgate |
$3,925,000 |
- 53% |
$14,919,225 |
| 7 |
The Martian |
Fox |
$3,700,000 |
- 45% |
$213,039,000 |
| 8 |
Spotlight |
Open Road Films |
$3,603,466 |
+ 166% |
$5,879,577 |
| 9 |
The 33 |
WARNER BROS. |
$2,240,000 |
- 61% |
$9,901,000 |
| 10 |
Bridge of Spies |
Disney |
$2,000,000 |
- 53% |
$65,150,000 |
| 11 |
Goosebumps |
|
$1,800,000 |
- 61% |
$76,000,000 |
| 12 |
Brooklyn |
FOX SEARCHLIGHT |
$1,150,000 |
+ 140% |
$2,159,000 |
| |
Also Opening/Notables |
| |
Carol |
Weinstein Co. |
$248,149 |
New |
$248,149 |
| |
Mustang |
Cohen Media Group |
$20,000 |
New |
$20,000 |
| |
Prem Ratan Dhan Payo |
Fip |
$640,000 |
- 74% |
$3,972,000 |
| |
My All American |
Aviron Pictures |
$375,000 |
- 73% |
$2,200,000 |
| |
By the Sea |
Universal |
$200,000 |
+ 108% |
$320,000 |
| |
Trumbo |
Bleecker Street |
$252,043 |
+ 78% |
$580,245 |
| |
Suffragette |
Focus Features |
$500,000 |
- 51% |
$3,548,019 |
| |
Room |
A24 |
$379,200 |
- 33% |
$2,896,210 |
| |
Hotel Transylvania 2 |
Sony |
$800,000 |
- 65% |
$166,400,000 |
|
Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations
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