Last weekend was all doom and gloom, the worst box office weekend of the year and the second or third flop-dominated weekend in a row. But movies make box-office trends, not the other way around, and Spectre and The Peanuts Movie combined for $118 million in domestic box office this weekend, putting this week’s top 12 movies up 148% from last weekend and 6% over the same weekend last year. That’s good hustle, Bondy. Cocaine for everyone.
Spectre grossed $73 million domestically, the second-best opening for a James Bond film ever, behind Skyfall‘s massive $88 million opening, on the way to more than a billion worldwide in 2012. Adjusted for inflation, Spectre is actually third behind Quantum of Solace‘s opening ($78 million), though it should be noted that the first Bond film for which there are opening weekend stats is Moonraker, in 1979. In terms of total domestic take adjusted for inflation, Skyfall is third behind Thunderball and Goldfinger.
Anyway, Spectre earned medium-decent reviews (here’s mine) and an A- Cinemascore, and was number one in every market where it opened. It opened two weeks ago in the UK, and including international box office, has already earned $300 million worldwide. Which is good, because it cost at least $250 million to make, after rebates. (God only knows how much it made back in product placement deals.) It would take a miracle for Spectre to beat Skyfall, which is nearly double the next closest Bond movie (Quantum of Solace domestically, Casino Royale internationally). The consensus seems to be that Spectre will end up as number two in both categories. Not that the rankings matter too much, the bottom line is, it’s doing well.
The other big winner this weekend was The Peanuts Movie, earning $45 million, with an 86% recommended rating and an A Cinemascore. I really think they were onto something with the animation in this, making the characters look like pop-out versions of the original drawings, instead of the usual, horrifying bug-eyed CG things. This version wasn’t nearly as jarring, as, say the Chipmunks movies, and none of the characters shook their butt to a hip-hop song in the trailer, which is a miracle these days. (Have you noticed they do that in every kids movie now? It’s really weird.)
In any case, it was a decent weekend for Peanuts, which cost a modest-for-CG-animation $99 million. The good reviews and word of mouth should give it some legs, though it will have Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur to compete with in two weeks.
In the miscellaneous column, The Martian is now officially Ridley Scott’s highest-grossing release (domestically speaking). Spotlight, Brooklyn (my review), and Trumbo all did well in limited release, while Miss You Already (my review) did not, earning just $1,490 per theater.
Another dubious honor goes to Steve Jobs, which, after about a month in release, has only just passed 2013’s Ashton Kutcher version of the same story (my review), in domestic gross, $16.68 million to Jobs‘ $16.13. In fact, the two are performing almost identically at this stage, and will probably remain that way. While I’d love to blame the poor performance on people not wanting to see another Aaron Sorkin-fied biopic — I’d estimate maybe 10 minutes of Steve Jobs actually had anything to do with Steve Jobs — even I’m not cruel enough to suggest it was anywhere near as bad as the one where Ashton Kutcher dreamed up the iPod while dropping acid in a field, where the characters say “Steve!” 73 times.
The more likely conclusion is that the moviegoing public just cared way less about Steve Jobs than movie studios imagined. If only they could figure out a way to make it so that all the other new movies ran slow and glitchy unless we upgraded to the latest version of the Steve Jobs movie.
Next week: The 33, Love The Coopers, and My All American. Brooklyn is also expanding to more theaters, and if it’s playing your town, you should see it because it’s great.
This week’s top 10, via ScreenCrush:
| Film | Weekend | Per Screen | ||
| 1 | Spectre | $73,000,000 | $18,580 | $73,000,000 |
| 2 | The Peanuts Movie | $45,000,000 | $11,547 | $45,000,000 |
| 3 | The Martian | $9,300,000 (-20.6%) | $3,257 | $197,067,000 |
| 4 | Goosebumps | $6,965,000 (-29.4%) | $2,283 | $66,440,000 |
| 5 | Bridge of Spies | $6,086,000 (-27.5%) |
$2,199 | $54,971,000 |
| 6 | Hotel Transylvania 2 | $3,550,000 (-39.4%) | $1,561 | $161,293,000 |
| 7 | Burnt | $3,003,000 (-40.0%) | $1,000 | $10,211,000 |
| 8 | The Last Witch Hunter | $2,650,000 (-48.7) | $1,159 | $23,571,000 |
| 9 | The Intern | $1,810,000 (-24.8%) | $1,690 | $71,407,000 |
| 10 | Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension | $1,650,000 (-52.0%) | $1,518 | $16,281,000 |
Now Watch: What To Know Going Into ‘Spectre’
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