As expected, it was all Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as the box office phenomenon held very decently over New Year's Weekend. Star Wars was down 40% to $90.2 million, easily beating Avatar's $68.5 million third weekend record. Thanks to huge weekends and strong business over Christmas break, Star Wars has already earned a huge $742.2 million in just 17 days! In that amount of time, The Force Awakens has already passed The Avengers ($623 million), Jurassic World ($652 million) and Titanic ($658 million including a re-release) for second place on the all-time chart domestically. Star Wars is set to pass Avatar in the next couple of days to take the all-time domestic crown. The fact this has played more like a Christmas release than a front-loaded blockbuster speaks to the word-of-mouth this movie is receiving, and the huge fanbase the franchise has. This is a rare exception that the optimists are correct in the box office predictions race.With school breaks ending, The Force Awakens probably won't hold as well from here. If it plays out like a typical Christmas release from here (including possible added business over the Martin Luther King Jr. and Presidents Day weekend), it will wind up between $850 and $900 million. And that's just in the United States alone! There's even a small chance, if it continues to play like a crowd pleaser, that it becomes the first movie ever to earn over $1 billion domestically. There's no way to predict how high this movie will go yet.
Overseas, Star Wars continued to rapidly move up the charts, with another $96 million picked up. Its at $1.51 billion worldwide in just three weeks, passing Avengers: Age of Ultron for sixth place on the all-time chart. It will pass the original Avengers and Furious 7 to claim fourth place today, and Jurassic World's $1.67 billlion worldwide finish will likely be passed within the next week and a half (especially with China opening Friday). At its current rate, The Force Awakens could become only the third movie in history to pass $2 billion worldwide.
I remain overwhelmed with how successful this movie is, and the rest of the movies remain distant from its gross. Star Wars will top next weekend. Its' first real competition for the crown will come over Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend when the buzzed-about Ride Along 2 opens. I am excited to see how it will play through January.
Repeating at #2 with strong results was comedy Daddy's Home. Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg were off 25% from last week to $29.2 million, for a very strong $93.9 million pick-up in 10 days. It will pass $100 million next weekend, and will mostlikely finish ahead of Ferrell's last movie, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues ($127.5 million).
After a strong limited start, Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight wasn't able to build on that potential in its nationwide expansion. The once possible Oscar contender added $15.7 million from 2,474 locations ($6,349 per-venue average). In comparison, Django Unchained earned $26 million in its nationwide opening weekend back in 2012. Reviews are solid, if unspectacular (75% on Rotten Tomatoes), while the CinemaScore was a "B". This may or may not play well in the coming weeks based on the audience reception. But, weirder things have happened.
Holdovers, for the most part, held well as Christmas break concluded. Sisters was off just 10% from last weekend to $12.8 million, for a solid $62.9 million gross in 17 days. The Tina Fey-Amy Poehler comedy will benefit from no additional competition for females the rest of this month. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip has had a solid holiday season, and was off just 8% to $12.1 million, for a decent $67.6 million pick-up in 17 days. That's in line with Yogi Bear through the same point, which ended up at $100 million. The Road Chip should wind up close to that same number.
Having one of the weaker holds of the bunch, Joy was down 40% to $10.2 million, for a decent $38.5 million in 10 days. Due to little awards season buzz, this won't play nearly as well as typical Oscar-positioned fare down the stretch. Concussion was off 25% to $7.8 million, for an OK $25.3 million gross in 10 days. The Will Smith dramedy should make its way to a finish of around $40-45 million. Decent, but not great. The Point Break remake was down 30% to $6.8 million, for a disappointing $22.7 million gross in 10 days, and will likely close around $35 million. $55 million overseas won't help matters either for the $100 million production.
Rounding out the Top 10 in its seventh weekend is The Hunger Games - Mockingjay: Part 2, which was down 13% to $4.6 million. The final installment in the Katniss trilogy has earned $274.2 million in 49 days and won't hit $300 million. It has also earned over $600 million worldwide, but will likely finish below The Hunger Games' $688 million final worldwide gross to finish last among the four movies.
Below the Top 10, The Good Dinosaur inched up 7% to $4.1 million, for a still-disappointing $114.7 million gross in six weeks of release. Pixar's latest has also struggled overseas, with the worldwide total only at $245 million so far. Against a $200 million budget, this will finish as a write-down for the Mouse House. At least Pixar has Finding Dory to look forward to, as well as a possible Best Picture nod for Inside Out. Meanwhile, Creed was off 15% to $3.7 million, for a very solid $103.1 million gross in six weeks. The Rocky continuation will likely score a Best Supporting Actor nod for Sylvester Stallone, and should continue to level off to a finish around $115 million.
Next weekend, the New Year's new releases kick into full swing with the expansion of Alejandro G. Inarritu's The Revenant, and horror flick The Forest. While the former will likely earn strong numbers, the latter will have a hard time keeping up. And, of course, Star Wars will remain on top. Stay tuned for predictions on Thursday.
