Weekend Wrap-Up

Openers, Snowstorm Jonas Bury Box Office

By John Hamann

January 24, 2016

Look, I'm angrier than a Clint Eastwood character!

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens remains a force at the box office, despite being out now for six weekends and blowing away all comers. The Force Awakens does see a significant decline, though, as it fell 46%, earning $14.3 million. When your film has earned $879.3 million at the domestic box office, it’s hard to complain about this kind of a drop, but the storm obviously got to The Force Awakens as it faced the same problems that The Revenant did. Overseas, it has earned more than a billion and has now passed Jurasic World to become the fourth highest movie of all-time. It has a worldwide gross to date of $1.94 billion and has also sold more than $700 million in toys according to a report this week.

Third is Ride Along 2, which appears to have served all of its audience over opening weekend. After opening to a lower-than-the –original amount of $35.2 million, things got much worse this weekend. The Kevin Hart/Ice Cube starrer could only muster $13 million in its second weekend, as it dives 63% compared to the previous frame. The original Ride Along opened to $41.5 million and dropped 49% in its second weekend to $21.3 million. The original had earned $75 million after two weekends, the sequel, only $59.1 million. Ride Along 2 also cost $15 million more than the original, and may tap out before it gets to $80 million domestic.

Fourth place goes to Dirty Grandpa, the new R-rated comedic raunch-fest with De Niro and Zac Efron. With some calling it the worst De Niro film ever, Dirty Grandpa had something else to overcome on this snowy weekend – major suckage. Dirty Grandpa took in $660,000 through its Thursday preview, and turned that into a combined Thursday/Friday opening day of $4.2 million. That put it in position to at least hit the tracking estimate between $9 and $11 million, but not much else. The comedy ended up with $11.5 million from 2,912 venues for Lionsgate, a middling result at best.




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While called one of the best actors of his generation, Robert De Niro has also made some stinkers. Little Fockers and its 10% fresh rating (3% from top critics) comes to mind, as does New Year’s Eve, the 7% fresh (3% from top critics) comedy from Gary Marshall. Dirty Grandpa comes in at 8% fresh, not the low point – at least at RottenTomatoes – but critics were angrier than usual about this one. It earned a B Cinemascore, which is about as low as it gets for a comedy. Next up for De Niro seems like a much better choice, as the movie is called Hands of Stone, about boxer Roberto Duran and his trainer Ray Arcel, played by De Niro. May Dirty Grandpa disappear quickly, as I don’t want to have to roll out that title for the next month.

Fifth spot goes to The Boy, the horror release from upstart distributor STX Entertainment. The Boy, starring Lauren Cohan from The Walking Dead, got started on Friday with a decent $3.9 million, but withered over the remaining frame and finished with $11.3 million. Surprisingly, The Boy was the best reviewed new release this weekend, but it was only 29% fresh at RottenTomatoes, with only 14 reviews counted at the time of this writing. The Cinemascore was an expected B-, better than the C that The Forest earned, and on par with Krampus. Made for $10 million, The Boy will likely earn $20 million domestically, and will need a small assist from overseas theaters.


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