Taken 3’s debut was 60% more than the first Taken’s January bow in 2010, but less than Taken 2’s $49.5 million October 2012 opening. No one was expecting Tak3n to match Taken 2’s potent debut, which remains one of the better "straight action" (no fantasy) bows in history, so coming close reflects well on the effectiveness of a potent TV marketing campaign that concentrated on sports and action movie-friendly programming across both network and cable TV. The marketers at Fox had to overcome the wrath of the critics, who roundly panned Taken 3, which currently has only a 12% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. But Taken 3’s debut indicates that the Taken property remains box office gold, and Liam Neeson, who reportedly earned $20 million for his final turn at playing Bryan Mills (a major portion of the film’s $48 production cost), is now clearly an action movie star of considerable stature, if he chooses to continue to maximize his earning potential.
Taken 3 attracted an audience that was 54% male, 64% over 25, with 44% in the 25-44 year-old bracket, and quite diverse with 46% Caucasian, 25% African-American, 17% Hispanic, and 12% Asian (or other). As further proof that critics don’t matter much at the action movie box office, opening weekend crowds gave Taken 3 a "B+" CinemaScore, not a great rating, but certainly a lot better than the pasting the film got from the critics. Taken 3 also earned a solid $51 million overseas and is already assured of becoming another big hit for Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp.
Director Ava DuVernay’s historical civil rights drama Selma was a distant second, earning $11.2 million as it expanded from 22 theaters to 2,179. In contrast to Taken 3, Selma has a near-perfect 99% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, in spite of the fact that some members of the Johnson administration have taken umbrage at the film’s portrait of a foot-dragging LBJ. A similar "historical controversy" over dramatic license taken by Steven Spielberg in his Lincoln biopic certainly didn’t hurt that movie with the critics or at the box office, and this shouldn’t bother Selma either. The film has been nominated for a number of awards, and if it wins a Golden Globe or snags a brace of Oscar nods, its box office run could be extended considerably.
|
Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): January 9-11, 2015 |
||||||
|
Film |
Weekend Gross |
Screens |
Avg./ Screen |
Total Gross |
Wk# |
|
|
1 |
Taken 3 |
$40,400,000 |
3,594 |
$11,241 |
$40,400,000 |
1 |
|
2 |
Selma |
$11,200,000 |
2,179 |
$5,140 |
$13,487,000 |
3 |
|
3 |
Into the Woods |
$9,750,000 |
2,833 |
$3,442 |
$105,272,000 |
3 |
|
4 |
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies |
$9,435,000 |
3,402 |
$2,773 |
$236,517,000 |
4 |
|
5 |
Unbroken |
$8,368,000 |
3,301 |
$2,535 |
$101,602,000 |
3 |
|
6 |
The Imitation Game |
$7,624,000 |
1,566 |
$4,868 |
$40,840,000 |
7 |
|
7 |
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb |
$6,700,000 |
3,371 |
$1,988 |
$99,523,000 |
4 |
|
8 |
Annie |
$4,919,000 |
2,856 |
$1,722 |
$79,437,000 |
4 |
|
9 |
The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death |
$4,825,000 |
2,602 |
$1,854 |
$22,334,000 |
2 |
|
10 |
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay--Part 1 |
$3,750,000 |
2,063 |
$1,818 |
$329,525,000 |
8 |
The Disney musical Into the Woods dropped just 47.9% and slid into third place just ahead of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, which dropped 56.6% as it earned $9.4 million and brought its domestic total to $236.5 million. It doesn’t appear that Peter Jackson’s Hobbit finale will make it to $300 million in the domestic market, but with $782 million earned worldwide, a billion-dollar global finish is still possible, if not all that likely.
Angelina Jolie’s sophomore directorial effort Unbroken slipped to fifth place as it earned $8.3 million, bringing its domestic total to $101.6 million as it joined the $100 million club this weekend along with Into the Woods ($105.3 million)--and Shawn Levy’s Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, which ended up at #7 fell just short, ending the weekend with $99.5 million.
The Hammer horror film Woman in Black 2, which posted a solid $15 million bow last weekend, dropped hard, falling 67.9% and ending up in ninth place.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part 1 fell to #10 as it earned an estimated $3.7 million bringing its massive domestic total to $329.5. It may well take until the end of the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, but Mockingjay: Part 1 will eventually surpass Guardians of the Galaxy ($333 million) to become the highest grossing film of 2014 in the domestic market.
Be sure to check back here next week as we survey the carnage from the first week of really heavy competition in 2015 as Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, which has earned $3.1 million playing in just four theaters for the past 17 days, goes wide in direct competition with the debuts of a new Kevin Hart comedy (The Wedding Ringer), a Michael Mann thriller (Blackhat), and the animated Paddington, which has already earned $107 million overseas including $47 million in the U.K.
--Tom Flinn
