Cinderella’s success is all the more impressive, because unlike Disney’s previous attempt to mine its animated heritage for live-action remakes, Maleficent, which starred Angelina Jolie, Cinderella could boast only the little known Lily James (Downton Abbey). But the Disney name and the popular property were enough to make Cinderella, the breakout hit of March (at least so far). Cinderella also proved that you don’t need "males" to have a hit film. 77% of Cinderella’s opening weekend audience was female, and 42% of the crowd was under18, part of a very nice age distribution of old and young that included a 31% segment under 12, plus a still substantial 9% over 50--and apparently they all liked movie quite a bit. The under 18 crowd and those 25-34 gave the film an "A" CinemaScore, while jaded college students (18-24) only gave the film an "A-," which was more than balanced by "A+" scores from the 35-49, and 50 and up brackets. These scores indicate that Cinderella, which is director Branagh’s biggest debut ever, could have considerable staying power in theaters, which in turn could represent a bit of bad news for Dreamworks’ Home, which debuts on March 27th.
Cinderella also set a new March record in China where it earned $25 million, a substantial portion of the film’s overseas opening weekend total of $62.5 million. A number of major territories still remain, but the $132.5 million worldwide debut means that this $95 million production should be in the black within a week or so.
The revenge-heavy action thriller Run All Night, in which Liam Neeson plays a hit man who has to take on the mob in order to safeguard his son, posted the most disappointing numbers yet for a Neeson action film, $11 million versus $12.8 million for last September’s A Walk Among the Tombstones. It is true that Neeson does better in more upbeat action films like the Taken series (Taken 3 just debuted to $39.2 million), but the $50 million Run All Night did manage to rate an "A-" CinemaScore, which provides at least some hope that the $50 million production will be able to recoup at least a substantial portion of its cost. But as counter-programming to lure males, who didn’t want to go to Cinderella, Run All Night was flop--its opening weekend audience actually skewed slightly female (52%), and older (with 86% over 25 years old).
Matthew Vaughn’s comic book-based 1960s espionage romp Kingsman: The Secret Service remains the best-performing holdover as it finished third in its fifth weekend as it dropped just 25.4%, earning $6.2 million and bringing its domestic total to $107.4 million, which is just 38.8% of the film’s $276.7 million worldwide total.
The Will Smith con artist film Focus slipped from second to fourth as it added $5.8 million, bringing its 3-week North American total to $44 million. Neil Blomkamp’s sci-fi robot saga Chappie slipped 56.5% in its second frame, which is certainly not a good sign given the film’s anemic debut. The rest of the films in the top ten all posted modest drops (under 40%), and with the earnings estimates of a number of films so close, the final order of the top ten may end up looking quite different once the final tallies are in on Monday.
Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper returned to the top ten as it earned an additional $3 million, bringing its domestic total to $341.5 million, opening up a $4.5 million lead on The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 in the now decided race for the highest grossing film of 2014 in the domestic market.
What will be the highest grossing film of 2015--The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Star Wars, or something else? Stay tuned right here to find out--and stop back here next week when Cinderella faces off against Insurgent, the second film in the teen-girl-targeting Divergent series, in the battle for female moviegoers, while the Sean Penn action film The Gunman and the religious-themed drama Do You Believe? go after the non-distaff viewers.
