‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part Two’ came out on top for the long Thanksgiving/Black Friday weekend, with $75.8 over the course of five days. ‘Part Two’ is holding up better than the previous ‘Hunger Games’ movies week over week, only dropping off 50%.
Disney/Pixar’s ‘The Good Dinosaur’ marked the first time two Pixar movies have opened in the same year, following earlier hit ‘Inside Out’, but unfortunately, weaker reviews resulted in $39.2M for the weekend, versus the $60M Pixar movies typically generate on opening. This also marks only the second time a Pixar movie hasn’t opened in the #1 spot. In addition to less than glowing reviews, some blame the film’s marketing, which seemed to mainly target young boys instead of the family as a whole. Even so, ‘The Good Dinosaur’ had the fourth highest Thanksgiving week/end opening of all time, so that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
‘Rocky’ sequel ‘Creed’ starring Michael B. Jordan has received rave reviews from both critics and audiences and has done much better than expected. The film’s budget was a meager $37M, so it’s already profiting. Social media is abuzz with some calling it the best movie of the year. Hopefully this extremely positive buzz will help this smaller drama continue to thrive in a crowded market.
Here are the official numbers:
- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part Two (Lionsgate) – $51.6M (Fri-Sun), $75.8M (Wed-Sun)
- The Good Dinosaur (Disney) – $39.2M, $55.6M
- Creed (Warner Brothers) – $31.1M, $42.6M
- Spectre (Sony) – $12.8M, $18.2M
- The Peanuts Movie (20th Century Fox) – $9.7M, 13.6M
Holdovers ‘Spectre’ and ‘The Peanuts Movie’ rounded out the Top Five. ‘Spectre’ has grossed more than Daniel Craig’s first two Bond movies, ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘Quantum of Solace’ combined, but so far, less than his previous installment ‘Skyfall’. Both movies managed to outperform the two new movies that cracked the Top Five last week, ‘The Night Before’ and ‘The Secret In Their Eyes’ which slipped to #6 and #7, respectively.
The complete bomb of the week, however belongs to 20th Century Fox’s ‘Victor Frankenstein’ starring James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe. It only managed to make $3.4M over five days, up from $2.4 for just Fri-Sun, making it the second worst opening of the year behind a certain not-so-Truly Outrageous toy adaptation a month ago. ‘Victor Frankenstein’ was originally supposed to be released in October 12014, but got bumped to January of this year, then again to this date in order to make room for Fox’s ‘The Martian’ which, in its ninth week, actually made more money than this movie did. Ouch!
The biggest movie opening next week is ‘Krampus’, but so far Christmas movies aren’t doing too well. Maybe now that Thanksgiving is over, folks will be more in the mood. Or rather, after Black Friday, maybe people are ready for a dark holiday film.
Honestly, I would think studios would rush out a few smaller potential hits this week to avoid the ‘Star Wars’ crunch (for example Tina Fey and Amy Pohler’s comedy ‘Sisters’ which is instead going head-to-head with this monster in hopes of providing a counter programing option). But what do I know?
Check back next week to see if ‘Mockingjay – Part Two’ can hang on to the top spot for a third week!
Source: Entertainment Weekly
