Weekend Box Office Report: December 12-14 2014

By Kip Mooney • On • In News News 0

 

BOX OFFICE REPORT 

December 5-7, 2014(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 51. Exodus: Gods and Kings (24.5 million)2. THG: Mockingjay - Part I ($13.2 million)3. Penguins of Madagascar ($7.3 million)4. Top Five ($7.2 million)5. Big Hero 6 ($6.1 million)

Christian Bale led his people out of Egypt as Moses in Exodus: Gods and Kings, and led Fox to the No. 1 film of the weekend. However, that's a pretty disappointing showing for a movie that somehow cost even more than Mockingjay, Part 1. They better hope international grosses prove to be a saving grace, because there's no way this one's even sniffing $100 million, much less its reported $140 million budget, here in the U.S. That's one expensive flop.

Mockingjay, Part 1, continued to its fourth (and last) week in the Top 3, and may just limp to $300 million, which will make it the lowest in the franchise. The Penguins of Madagascar aren't getting to $100 million either, so it's kind of a disappointing weekend all around.

At least Top Five, Chris Rock's ferociously funny showbiz satire, debuted decently. $7.2 million may not seem like a lot, but it's on fewer than 1000 screens. Hopefully good word-of-mouth will propel it throughout the holiday season. It's certainly funnier than anything else on the horizon for the foreseeable future. Big Hero 6 rounded out the rest with another $6.1 million, but I still feel it misses the $200 million milestone.

Outside the top 5: - This Weekend's Indie Champ: Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson's wild adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's hazy detective novel, averaged $66,000 on only five screens. That's one of the year's more impressive debuts, but still behind such indie heavyweights as Boyhood, Birdman and The Imitation Game.

- Dumb and Dumber To has finally earned $82 million, or what Let's Be Cops made with a fraction of the budget.

- Back in Time, a Chinese film based on a web series, averaged an impressive $10,500 on only 20 screens.

Next week: The holiday onslaught starts. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies gets a head start by opening Wednesday. Then the updated Annie starring Quvenzhane Wallis battles Secret of the Tomb, which I pray to God is the last Night at the Museum movie. The Hobbit's going to be No. 1, and will definitely top $70 million. It just depends how ready audiences are to be done with this series. 

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.

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