Hidden Figures added 815 theaters and its total dropped just 10.3% from last weekend, earning $20.4 million and bringing its domestic total to $54.8 million. This saga of three female African-American mathematicians whose calculations were a crucial part of America’s space race is expected to earn another $5 million on Martin Luther King Day and finish the four-day weekend with a domestic total near $60 million.
Second place went to the “jazz musical” La La Land, which received a huge bump from its sweep of major awards at last Sunday’s Golden Globes. La La Land added 333 theaters, but the Oscar favorite is still only showing in 1,848 venues in North America, and once again it earned the highest per-theater average ($7,846) among widely distributed films as it brought in $14.5 million to bring its domestic total to $74 million.
Sing, Illumination Entertainments animated funny animal version of American Idol, took the third spot as it declined just 33.3%, earning $13.8 million and bringing its North American total to $233 million.
Disney’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story slipped to #4 as it earned an estimated $13.78 million to bring its domestic total to $498.9 million, surpassing Disney’s Finding Dory ($486 million) to become the highest-grossing film released in 2016. By the end of tomorrow Rogue One will have become the only 2016 release to surpass $500 million in North America, and only the seventh film to have earned that much (not accounting for ticket price inflation of course). Worldwide, Rogue One’s total now stands at $980 million, which means that the Star Wars spin-off should pass the $1 billion mark by this time next week.
Taking advantage of a Friday-the-thirteenth release, the micro-budgeted ($7.4 million) horror film The Bye Bye Man was one of only two new films (or major expansion) to surpass expectations as it earned $13.3 million over the 3-day weekend. Horror films appear to be about the only genre in which movie fans typically don’t grade on a curve, so The Bye Bye Man’s “C” CinemaScore might not be quite as bad as it would appear, though don’t expect lots of “leg” from this film that will have doubled its production cost by the end of MLK day. Opening weekend audiences skewed female (61%) and young with 75% of the audience for the “PG-13” chiller under 25.
|
Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): January 13-15, 2017 |
||||||
|
Film |
Weekend Gross |
Screens |
Avg./Screen |
Total Gross |
Wk# |
|
|
1 |
Hidden Figures |
$20,450,000 |
3,286 |
$6,223 |
$54,833,100 |
4 |
|
2 |
La La Land |
$14,500,000 |
1,848 |
$7,846 |
$74,081,569 |
6 |
|
3 |
Sing |
$13,810,970 |
3,693 |
$3,740 |
$233,026,490 |
4 |
|
4 |
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story |
$13,759,000 |
3,162 |
$4,351 |
$498,850,734 |
5 |
|
5 |
The Bye Bye Man |
$13,378,000 |
2,220 |
$6,026 |
$13,378,000 |
1 |
|
6 |
Patriots Day |
$12,000,000 |
3,120 |
$3,846 |
$12,924,082 |
4 |
|
7 |
Monster Trucks |
$10,500,000 |
3,119 |
$3,366 |
$10,500,000 |
1 |
|
8 |
Sleepless |
$8,468,787 |
1,803 |
$4,697 |
$8,468,787 |
1 |
|
9 |
Underworld: Blood Wars |
$5,815,000 |
3,070 |
$1,894 |
$23,931,118 |
2 |
|
10 |
Passengers |
$5,625,000 |
2,447 |
$2,299 |
$90,004,731 |
4 |
Peter Berg’s Boston Marathon bombing movie Patriot’s Day earned an excellent “A+” CinemaScore from audiences as it went into wide release, but the estimated $12 million that the film earned was well below expectations. The strong CinemaScore indicates that Patriot’s Day will hang around for some time, but the mediocre $3,846 theater average indicates a startling lack of interest in this real life docudrama.
Paramount’s live-action/CGI hybrid Monster Trucks turned out so badly that the studio took a $115 million writedown on the $125 million film last September. Perhaps the studio ought to revisit that maxim about the impossibility of underestimating the intelligence of the American people since Monster Trucks earned an “A” CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences that skewed male (53%) and younger (60% under 25). Still opening at #7 and earning just $10.5 million from 3,119 theaters is deadly for a film that cost this much.
The crime thriller Sleepless, which stars Jamie Foxx, managed to beat the low expectations that analysts had for the film by earning $8.5 million for the 3-day weekend. Look for this solidly-made genre film to end up with a domestic run around $30 million.
The ninth spot went to Underworld: Blood Wars, which tumbled 57.5% in its second weekend of release as it earned $5.8 million to bring its domestic total to $23 million.
The science fiction/romance Passengers, which stars Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, keeps hanging around. Passengers earned an estimated $5.6 million over the 3-day holiday to bring its domestic total to $90 million. After a slow start Passengers looks like it will end up earning $100 million here in North America, and it just might do well enough overseas (where it has currently racked up $147 million) to just about defray its announced production budget of $110 million.
In a blow to Warner Bros. (as well as to the ego of director/star Ben Affleck) the period gangster movie Live By Night expanded from 4 screens to 2,822 but manage to earn only $5.4 million over the 3-day weekend, thanks to a pitiful $1,922 per-venue average. The overseas outlook is equally dismal for this newly-minted bomb, which opened in 25 territories and brought in only $3.3 million.
Also DOA was Martin Scorsese’s period religious epic The Silence, which expanded to 747 theaters, but could only manage to bring in $1.9 million for the 3-day weekend.
Be sure to check back here next week to see how two new widely-released films fare. Vin Diesel is back as “triple X” in xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, while M. Night Shyamalan hopes to rekindle the magic of The Sixth Sense with his new horror/hostage drama Split, while The Weinstein Company opens its Ray Kroc biopic The Founder in 1000 theaters, and the faith-based Christian comedy The Resurrection of Gavin Stone debuts at a similar number of venues.
