This weekend’s box office was down 27% from the same weekend last year, leaving many to wonder: was it the vagina-shaped snow storm keeping people home, or the lack of decent movies opening? Last year had American Sniper inflating the numbers, while this weekend had three new releases — Dirty Grandpa, The Boy, and The 5th Wave — none of which received better than a B cinemascore or 30% on RottenTomatoes. Here’s The Hollywood Reporter:
Analysts project that weekend revenue could be down as much as 12 percent because of [winter storm] Jonas. Theaters in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia remain dark on Sunday as clean-up efforts begin; it’s unclear whether New York City cinemas will be able to reopen. [THR]
In the midst of it all, The Revenant became the top movie of the weekend for the first time, earning $16 million domestically in its fifth week of release (and third in wide release). With a $119 million domestic total, it surpassed The Wolf Of Wall Street to become DiCaprio’s eighth-highest grosser. Which means: eating raw bison liver > snorting coke out of buttholes. Real shame, you ask me. Per Forbes:
That’s a 45% drop from last weekend, which is impressive considering last weekend was a holiday and offered the post-Oscar nominations bump while this weekend had a giant snowstorm.
It’s also the third highest-grossing Best Picture nominee behind Mad Max ($153.6 million), which it may catch, and The Martian ($227.4 million), which it won’t.
Next up was Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with $14.2 million. It’s now closing in on $900 million domestically. It may not ever catch Titanic or Avatar in global box office, but that domestic number is a monster, already $100 million higher than Avatar in number two. Star Wars, who knew, right?
Behind Star Wars was Ride Along 2 in its second week of release, earning $12.96 million after falling hard from last week, down 63.2%. For comparison, the first Ride Along dropped only 48.7%, but of course they can always blame that on the snow.
Dirty Grandpa was best-performing of the new releases at $11.525 million, The 5th Wave was worst, at $10.7 million. All three (including The Boy) performed more or less in line with expectations. Though The 5th Wave, which cost $38 million to make, was, naturally, intended to be the beginning of a new YA franchise, opening behind Ride Along 2 and Dirty Grandpa doesn’t exactly scream “I need a sequel.” We’ll know more next week when studios won’t be able to blame the snow storm. Interestingly, it seems most of the young female audience was watching The Boy.
The Boy, fueled by younger females and Hispanics (41 percent), grossed $11.2 million from 2,671 theaters. Directed by William Brent Bell, the movie is the third release from STX Entertainment, which partnered with Lakeshore on the $10 million movie. Females made up 75 percent of ticket buyers. [THR]
Next week will bring us Fifty Shades of Black, The Finest Hours, and Kung Fu Panda 3, which makes it a good week to catch up on stuff like The Big Short and Anomalisa (provided you can actually find a theater playing the f*cking thing) before Hail Caesar hits next week. I’m still confused how we ended up with Marlon as the most visible Wayans brother.
| Film | Weekend | Per Screen | ||
| 1 | The Revenant | $16,000,000 (-49.7) | $4,312 | $119,192,522 |
| 2 | Star Wars: The Force Awakens | $14,257,000 (-45.9) | $4,237 | $879,289,346 |
| 3 | Ride Along 2 | $12,960,000 (-63.2) | $4,060 | $59,110,040 |
| 4 | Dirty Grandpa | $11,525,000 | $3,958 | $11,525,000 |
| 5 | The Boy | $11,260,000 |
$4,216 | $11,260,000 |
| 6 | The 5th Wave | $10,700,000 | $3,680 | $10,700,000 |
| 7 | 13 Hours | $9,750,000 (-39.8) | $3,342 | $33,483,429 |
| 8 | Daddy’s Home | $5,270,000 (-44.8) | $1,890 | $138,780,265 |
| 9 | Norm of the North | $4,100,000 (-40.1) | $1,701 | $14,296,203 |
| 10 | The Big Short | $3,500,000 (-34.0) | $2,591 | $56,713,841 |
Chart via ScreenCrush.