This weekend’s new releases included holiday fam-com Love the Coopers (my review) and the Chilean mining drama The 33, and hey would you look at that, it was holdovers leading the way. Spectre and Peanuts repeated at one-two, with $35.4 and $24.2 million, respectively. Spectre dropped 49.7% from its opening weekend, a small drop by huge blockbuster standards, and had a massive $48 million opening in China (a record for a non-3D U.S. movie). Keep in mind, Skyfall, the highest-grossing Bond movie by a margin, only made $59 million in its entire run in China. Spectre is now approaching $550 million worldwide.
Peanuts fell a little less, 45.3%, though it had hoped for better based on its strong reviews. It has now grossed about $82 million domestically. Its international numbers have been pretty weak, $8.1 million total, and look to get worse with a Pixar movie (The Good Dinosaur) opening next week.
With almost $16 million separating them, Love the Coopers was next down the list in third place with $8.4 million. This was either “well over projections” or “about what was projected going into the weekend,” so I guess it depends who you ask. In either case, Love the Coopers cost a modest $17 million to make, so it should be okay. With a 16% recommended rating and a B- Cinemascore, word of mouth probably won’t be doing it any favors, though it does, according to most analysts, benefit from being the only family holiday comedy in the marketplace. Which should be worth… something, I guess. Forbes predicts $20-40 million for its entire run.
The 33 (Mike Ryan’s review) fared worse, at $5.85 million, which was “well below projections of $8 million,” according to the L.A. Times. It managed an A Cinemascore among an audience that was 73% over 25, to go with its 40% recommended rating on RottenTomatoes. For the most part, I don’t think most people wanted to see a movie about 33 Chilean men trapped underground if it wasn’t going to have sex scenes. I mean if I wanted blue balls, I could’ve stayed home ha ch-cha cha cha (*dodges rock*).
Much further on down the old list was By the Sea, the Angelina Jolie-directed relationship drama starring Jolie and her husband, Brad something or other, which opened on 10 screens and didn’t even break six figures, at $95,440 (“almost $40,000 below its first weekend projections“). It probably isn’t going to get much better. And sure, you could start drafting your thinkpiece about the death of the movie star, but the bottom line is, no one’s going to see your arthouse movie about a failed relationship if it’s not even getting good reviews, no matter who you are. Especially when people can see Room, Spotlight, or Brooklyn. (By the Sea does have nudity, so there’s that.)
Way ahead of By the Sea was Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, which set an opening day record in India with $8.61 million. In North America, it managed $2.4 million from 286 theaters, the fourth largest Bollywood opening of all time. I don’t know what it’s about, but the trailer sure is pretty. I didn’t know a movie could even have this many colors.
Next week brings us The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, The Night Before, and The Secret in Their Eyes, which has gotten insanely little press for a movie starring three Oscar winners, Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
| Film | Weekend | Per Screen | ||
| 1 | Spectre | $35,400,000 (-50%) | $9,010 | $130,700,000 |
| 2 | The Peanuts Movie | $24,200,000 (-45%) | $6,202 | $82,489,000 |
| 3 | Love the Coopers | $8,400,000 | $3,227 | $8,400,000 |
| 4 | The Martian | $6,725,000 (-26%) | $2,412 | $207,407,000 |
| 5 | The 33 | $5,845,000 |
$2,384 | $5,845,000 |
| 6 | Goosebumps | $4,650,000 (-32%) | $1,658 | $73,487,000 |
| 7 | Bridge of Spies | $4,289,000 (-26%) | $1,596 | $61,695,000 |
| 8 | Hotel Transylvania 2 | $2,350,000 (-35%) | $1,281 | $165,244,000 |
| 9 | The Last Witch Hunter | $1,500,000 (-42%) | $1,014 | $26,076,000 |
| 10 | My All American | $1,392,000 | $889 | $1,392,000 |