Weekend Box Office Report: December 26-28 2014

By Kip Mooney • On • In News News 0

 BOX OFFICE REPORT 

December 26-28, 2014(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 51. The Hobbit 3 (41.4 million)2. Unbroken ($31.7 million)3. Into the Woods ($31.0 million)4. Night at the Museum 3 ($20.6 million)5. Annie ($16.6 million)

Even with more competition than ever, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies reigned victorious. The final chapter in Peter Jackson's stretching of the J.R.R. Tolkien novel slipped a mere 24.3 percent, a nearly insignificant drop compared to most blockbusters in their second weeks. In fact, it was one of only three movies in the Top 15 to actually lose money. (The other two were Exodus: Gods and Kings and Penguins of Madagascar.)

Unbroken, the inspirational true story of the Olympic runner who survived years in a Japanese POW camp, aptly took second place in a photo finish. Less than $1 million separate it from Into the Woods. The latter is actually more impressive, considering the musical played on 700 fewer screens. Both films are nearly at $50 million since opening Thursday.

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb is up an impressive 20.5 percent, though at only $55 million, the last film in this franchise is going out with a whimper instead of a bang. And Annie was up nearly five percent, but it's taken 10 days to make even less than Unbroken and Into the Woods made in just four. 

Outside the top 5: - This Weekend's Indie Champ: American Sniper, Clint Eastwood's biopic of U.S. Navy sniper Chris Kyle, debuted with a whopping $152,500 on only four screens. The only movie to have better per-theater average this year is The Grand Budapest Hotel. 

- After all the controversy, The Interview debuted on only 331 screens (as well as video on demand) and earned only $1.8 million, which isn't great, and not exactly the surge most people expected to see after getting more coverage than any other movie opening on Christmas Day.

- The other Christmas releases did fair to middling business: Mark Wahlberg's remake of The Gambler has made $14.3 million since Thursday. Tim Burton's Big Eyes, a biopic on artist Margaret Keane probably opened the wrong way. Instead of a limited release and riding a wave of good reviews, the Weinstein Company opened on 1,300 screens, earning less than Interstellar in its eighth weekend.

Next week: Taking advantage of an oft-forgotten weekend, The Woman in Black 2 drops in. If there was less competition, I'd say it has a shot at No. 1. But with The Hobbit and good word-of-mouth from Christmas releases, it might only reach third or fourth.

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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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