Weekend Box Office Report: January 2-4 2014

By Kip Mooney • On • In News News 0

 BOX OFFICE REPORT 

January 2-4, 2015(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 51. The Hobbit 3 (21.9 million)2. Into the Woods ($19.0 million)3. Unbroken ($18.3 million)4. Women in Black 2 ($15.1 million)5. Night at the Museum 3 ($14.4 million)

For the first weekend of 2015, everything stayed the same. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies continued its reign at No. 1. It's pacing a little better than The Desolation of Smaug at this point in their runs, but it would take some sort of miracle for it to out-gross An Unexpected Journey.

Unbroken, which actually finished third after last week's final tallies, held onto that position. Again, less than $1 million separated it from Into the Woods. And again, it's more impressive for Into the Woods, considering it both cost less money and opened on fewer screens than The Hobbit or Unbroken. The Stephen Sondheim adaptation could easily become one of the Top 5 musicals of all time, but would need a few more tunes to get it past Mamma Mia! ($144 million) or Les Miserables ($148.8 million).

The Woman in Black 2, the weekend's only new film, debuted pretty well for a January movie. Its $15.1 million is less than its predecessor, but that also had Harry Potter himself in it. It will quickly fade as more studio leftovers open this month, but proves the first weekend of January is another opportunity for a movie to take advantage of weak competition.

Outside the top 5: - This Weekend's Indie Champ: American Sniper, Clint Eastwood's biopic of U.S. Navy sniper Chris Kyle, took its impressive opening and raised it. Without expanding its screens, the Bradley Cooper-starring war drama bumped its average up to $160,000, which sets the pace for 2015.

- A Most Violent Year had a very good year. It opened on New Year's Eve, and averaged $47,000 on each of its four screens.

- While last weekend was a tide that lifted all boats, this weekend was great for all the movies vying for Oscar attention. Belgian drama Two Days, One Night, Russian thriller Leviathan, Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game, druggy noir Inherent Vice and MLK tribute Selma all averaged more than $10,000 in their limited releases.

Next week: Liam Neeson's particular set of skills is going to dismantle the competition. Taken 3 is going to be No. 1, and we'll just have to deal with it. $40 million is easy for Bryan Mills. Liam Neeson saying no to sequels is not one. 

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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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