Sunday, December 11, 2016

Moana Wins The Box Office For The Third Weekend In A Row While Office Christmas Party Gets Started And La La Land Dances To Massive Numbers

Well now, anyone else getting some deja vu from this same weekend last year? It's yet another second weekend of December where everyone's waiting for a new Star Wars movie to debut next weekend. Luckily, things were much livelier this time of year thanks to the presence of Moana and Office Christmas Party performing far better than the higher-profile new release from last year, In The Heart Of The Sea. But first, Moana was indeed on top of the box office for the third weekend in a row, grossing another $18.8 million, a 33% dip from last weekend that brings the smash hit family movies domestic gross up to $145 million in 19 days of domestic release. Where exactly this one ends its impressive domestic run will all depend on how well it holds against Rogue One and Sing over the next two weeks. It could go as low as $210-215 million or it could end up as high as $240-245 million. We shall see in the coming weeks ahead.

Not far behind in second place was a solid performance from Office Christmas Party, which grossed $17.5 million in its opening weekend, the eighth biggest opening weekend for a Jason Bateman movie, the eleventh biggest debut for a Jennifer Aniston movie and the fourteenth biggest opening weekend for a Christmas movie ever. While not a massive bow, this is a solid debut for the film that can be chalked up to a marketing campaign that emphasized raunchy yuletide hijinks and a large-scale ensemble cast that mixed well-known stars (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston) with various noteworthy talents from well-received 2016 projects (Courtney B. Vance, Kate McKinnon and T.J. Miller). Christmas themed films tend to hold quite well, so expect this one to finish its domestic run in the range of $60-65 million, a decent sum though one that'll need foreign grosses to fully recoup its $45 million budget.

In its fourth weekend, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them grossed another $10.7 million, a 40% dip from last weekend, about on par with the fourth weekend dip of the last Hunger Games at the same weekend last year. Fantastic Beasts has now grossed $199.3 million and looks to be headed towards a final domestic gross between $225-230 million domestically. Arrival had yet another great dip in its surprisingly strong box office run, going down only 23% to gross another $5.6 million and bringing its domestic cume to $81.4 million. If this movie can just not get uttely decimated by the new releases over the next two weeks, it looks like Arrival could crack $100 million domestically, an insane feat for the motion picture. Doctor Strange grossed another $4.6 million this weekend had a solid 30% dip, which is slightly larger than the 26% dip experienced by Spectre in its sixth weekend though much smaller than the 41% drop seen by Thor: The Dark World in its sixth weekend of release. Doctor Strange has now grossed a strong $222.3 million domestically. Allied actually had the largest weekend-to-weekend drop in the top ten, going down 43% to gross another $4 million, bringing its domestic cume to $35.6 million in 19 days of domestic release.

Nocturnal Animals went into its first weekend of wide release grossing an alright $3.1 million at 1,262 theaters for a per-theater-average of $2,500. It's managed to gross $6.2 million after 24 days of release (only 3 of those days have been in wide release) and should be able to surpass the $9.1 million domestic cume of director Tom Ford's last movie, A Single Man, though it'll be tough for this one to stick around at the domestic box office considering the onslaught of new releases that are on the way.

Finally cracking the top ten this weekend was Manchester By The Sea, which grossed a strong $3.1 million at 368 locations for a per-theater average of $8,500. The film will be going into wide release this Friday and looks to be set to do solid business there. Manchester By The Sea has now grossed $8.3 million, making it already the eighth biggest movie ever for Roadside Attractions (who are distributing this one theatrically on behalf of Amazon Studios) before it even goes into wide release. Still out there and kicking is Trolls, which grossed another $3.1 million this weekend, a 34% dip from last weekend which is a notably bigger sixth weekend decline than the likes of The Peanuts Movie (which lost 25% in its sixth weekend). Trolls has now grossed $145.4 million and will cross the $150 million mark sometime over the Christmas holidays. Rounding out the top ten was Hacksaw Ridge, which continues to perform splendidly, adding another $2.3 million to its domestic cume that now stands at a strong $60.8 million domestically.

Miss Sloane went into wide release this weekend and became yet another box office dud for EuropaCorp, who are just not having a good 2016. Grossing only $1.9 million, the political drama failed to catch on thanks to a poor marketing campaign and a massive amount of competing dramas in the marketplace. Look for this one to fade quickly from theaters in the coming weeks as a number of new releases open up, meaning this one will likely miss the $5 million mark domestically.

Bad Santa 2 is just limping to the finish line in its domestic release, grossing $1.2 million this weekend, which is a massive 62% drop from last weekend. Bad Santa 2 has only grossed $16.8 million in 19 days. Incarnate, meanwhile, grossed $1.09 million in its second weekend, a 57% drop from last weekend that takes its domestic total to just $4.2 million.

La La Land got off to a massive start in limited release, grossing $855,000 at just 5 locations for an outstanding per-theater average of $171,000, the tenth biggest opening weekend per-theater average of all-time and the third biggest for a non-Disney animated title (only The Grand Budapest Hotel and Red State were bigger in that category). La La Land will be expanding into more theaters on both December 16th (that's when it finally comes to a theater super close to me!) and December 25th, and if these massive box office figures are any indication, La La Land could be set up for a super impressive run at the domestic box office.

Expanding into 572 theaters this weekend was Loving, which grossed $623,380 for an underwhelming per-theater average of $1,090, taking its domestic total to $6.5 million. Jackie grossed $495,000 this weekend as it expanded into 26 theaters for a per-theater average of $19,038, a solid sum that takes its 10-day domestic cume to $859,000.  Not quite faring so well in a theater expansion was Lion, which went into 15 theaters and grossed $171,000 for a so-so per-theater-average of $11,461. It's starting to look like this one won't flourish much in a wider release if these are the kind of numbers it's putting up in a super limited release. Lion has now grossed $493,190 in 17 days of release. Finally, it's worth noting that, after 157 days of release, The Secret Life Of Pets surpassed Despicable Me 2 this weekend to become the biggest Illumination Entertainment movie ever.

The Top 12 movies this weekend grossed $76.4 million, very much on the low end for this time of year though it was up from the same weekend in 2014 and 2015.

No comments:

Post a Comment