It’s fitting that during a weekend which a large chunk of the nation was hammered with a major snow storm, the #1 movie is about a man struggling to survive in the frozen wilderness. But while the box office was down 27% compared to this same weekend last year, fueled by 12 Academy Award nominations, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s ‘The Revenant’ starring Leonardo DiCaprio rose to take the top spot.
Rentrak’s Paul Dergarabedian said:
“Studios often blame poor weekends on bad weather, but that was truly the case during Jonas. It was a big deal for a number of movies. But ‘The Revenant’ did something astonishing this weekend taking the top spot with this intense wilderness epic. It’s flourishing.”
The blizzard may have taken its toll on some other newcomers though and it’s possible that some may not recover from the weak weekend.
Here are the numbers:
- The Revenant (20th Century Fox) – $16M
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Disney) – $14.25M
- Ride Along 2 (Universal) – $12.96M
- Dirty Grandpa (Lionsgate) – $11.5M
- The Boy (STX) – $11M
‘The Revenant’, if you keep score of such things, is now Leonardo DiCaprio’s eighth highest-grossing movie, moving past ‘The Wolf of Wallstreet’ which made $116M overall. ‘The Revenant’ is in its fifth week overall and third week in wide release and managed to land at #1 despite making almost 50% less than it did last weekend. Of the films nominated for ‘Best Picture’ at the Academy Awards, with a cumulative gross of $119M, it ranks third, trailing behind ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ which took in $153.6M during its run, but of course ‘The Revenant’ is still in wide release, so it could gain more in the coming weeks, especially if the weather lets up.
Last week’s #1, ‘Ride Along 2’ took a major tumble, down a whopping 63% to land at #3 and the release of next week’s ‘Fifty Shades of Black’ could cause the Ice Cube/Kevin Hart comedy to topple from the Top Five altogether.
The two newcomers ‘Dirty Grandpa’ and ‘The Boy’ performed close to expectations. ‘Dirty Grandpa’ has garnered dreadful reviews so it probably won’t recover from this anemic opening. On the other hand, ‘The Boy’ only cost $10M to make, so it’s already in the black.
At #6 is ‘The 5th Wave’, a YA sci fi drama starring Chloë Grace Moretz which took in $10.7M, with very little promotion or advance buzz.
Exhibitor Relations analyst Jeff Block commented:
“Jonas had an impact on what would already have been some bland January openings, including ‘Dirty Grandpa.’ ‘The Boy’ cost $10 million, so it will be fine. ‘The 5th Wave’ was disappointing; Sony had hoped to start a franchise with this film, and you can’t do that with a $10 million opening.”
In addition to the Marlon Wayan’s spoof ‘Fifty Shades of Black’, next week sees the openings of ‘Kung Fu Panda 3’ and ‘The Finest Hours’. Check back to see how they fare, barring any other meteorological catastrophes.
Sources: USAToday, Box Office Mojo
