By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com
The Weekend Report
| Weekend (estimates) January 3 – 5, 2014 | |||||
| Title | Distributor | Gross (average) | % change * | Theaters | Cume |
| Frozen | BV | 20.7 (6,240) | -28% | 3318 | 297.8 |
| Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones | Par | 18.2 (6,340) | NEW | 2867 | 18.2 |
| The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug | WB | 16.2 (4,340) | -44% | 3730 | 229.6 |
| The Wolf of Wall Street | Par | 13.4 (5,250) | -27% | 2557 | 63.3 |
| American Hustle | Sony/eOne | 12.9 (5,140) | -31% | 2518 | 88.5 |
| Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues | Par | 11.1 (3,250) | -44% | 3407 | 109.2 |
| Saving Mr. Banks | BV | 9.0 (4,270) | -33% | 2110 | 59.3 |
| The Secret Life of Walter Mitty | Fox | 8.2 (2,820) | -35% | 2922 | 45.7 |
| The Hunger Games: Catching Fire | Lionsgate | 7.3 (3,160) | -27% | 2315 | 407.4 |
| Grudge Match | WB | 5.4 (1,910) | -23% | 2838 | 24.9 |
| 47 Ronin | Uni | 5.0 (1,860) | -50% | 2690 | 32.6 |
| Walking with Dinosaurs | Fox/eOne | 3.8 (1,490) | -48% | 2550 | 31.4 |
| A Madea Christmas | Lionsgate | 3.1 (2,120) | -55% | 1474 | 50.4 |
| Philomena | Weinstein Co, | 1.5 (2,540) | -13% | 607 | 19.7 |
| Mandella: Long Walk to Freedom | Weinstein Co, | 1.1 (1,100) | -51% | 1010 | 7.1 |
| Inside Llewyn Davis | CBS | 1.1 (7,300) | -9% | 156 | 6.9 |
| Her | WB | .71 (15,110) | 9% | 47 | 3 |
| Nebraska | Par | .67 (2,790) | -9% | 240 | 7.1 |
| Justin Bieber’s Believe | Open Road/eOne | .56 (540) | -72% | 1037 | 5.9 |
| The Book Thief | Fox | .55 (1,670) | -10% | 329 | 19.1 |
| Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 | Sony | .53 (1,910) | 4% | 278 | 117.7 |
| Gravity | WB | .50 (3,030) | -2% | 165 | 255.6 |
| Thor: The Dark World | BV | .48 (1,650) | -35% | 291 | 203.4 |
| 12 Years a Slave | Fox Searchlight | .32 (2,140) | -13% | 151 | 38.5 |
| Dhoom 3 | Yash Raj | .32 (2,310) | -70% | 138 | 7.8 |
| Dallas Buyers Club | Focus/Remstar | .30 (2,370) | 9% | 128 | 16.3 |
| Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) | $142.00 | ||||
| % Change (Last Year) | -1% | ||||
| % Change (Last Week) | -26% | ||||
| Also debuting/expanding | |||||
| August Osage County | Weinstein Co. | .14 (28,400) | -21% | 5 | 0.48 |
| Lone Survivor | Uni | 83,700 (41,850) | -8% | 2 | 0.32 |
| The Great Beauty | Janus | 82,400 (2,100) | 17% | 41 | 0.94 |
| All is Lost | Roadside | 52,300 (780) | -19% | 67 | 6.5 |
| The Past | Sony Classics | 38,400 (7,680) | 12% | 5 | 0.16 |
| Personal Tailor | China Lion | 32,700 (3,630) | -40% | 9 | 0.35 |
| The Invisible Woman | Sony Classics | 28,500 (7,120) | -11% | 4 | 0.11 |
| In No Great Hurry: Saul Leiter | Carousel | 5,400 (5,400) | 1 | 0.01 | |
| The Best Offer | IFC | 2,800 (2,800) | 1 | 0.01 | |
| Top Domestic Grossers (Jan. 1 – Dec. 31, 2013) | |||||
| Title | Distributor | Box Office | |||
| Iron Man 3 | BV | 409,147,687 | |||
| The Hunger Games: Catching Fire | Lionsgate | 395,526,705 | |||
| Despicable Me 2 | Uni | 367,793,270 | |||
| Man of Steel | WB | 291,142,307 | |||
| Monsters University | BV | 268,492,764 | |||
| Frozen | BV | 263,092,648 | |||
| Gravity | WB | 254,861,229 | |||
| Fast & Furious 6 | Uni | 238,734,755 | |||
| Oz the Great and Powerful | BV | 234,911,825 | |||
| Star Trek Into Darkness | Par | 228,792,885 | |||
| Thor: The Dark World | BV | 202,651,732 | |||
| World War Z | Par | 202,359,711 | |||
| The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug | WB | 201,542,078 | |||
| The Croods | Fox | 187,198,596 | |||
| The Heat | Fox | 159,582,188 | |||
| We’re the Millers | WB | 150,560,626 | |||
| The Great Gatsby | WB | 144,875,623 | |||
| The Conjuring | WB | 137,400,141 | |||
| Identity Thief | Uni | 134,863,488 | |||
| Grown Ups 2 | Sony | 133,732,565 | |||
It was the big chill for newcomer Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones as it got iced by Frozen for top spot at the weekend box office. The sole freshman national release bowed to an estimated $18.2 million, roughly $2.5 million behind the animated princess.
Still recovering from holiday festivities, revenues for the frame ebbed 26% from last weekend but showed a slim 1% decline from 2013. Twelve months back another horror franchise, Texas Chainsaw, edged out Django Unchained with $21.7 million to the oater’s $20 million gross.
The 2013 calendar still has number crunchers (myself included) crunching but prospects are for final figures (later in the week) to tote up to roughly 1% improved from 2012 with admissions abating about 3%.
The latest chapter in the Paranormal Activity series was tracking in a fashion that suggested it would lead session moviegoing. It wasn’t quite as potent as anticipated, with its opening strength diminished almost one-third from the prior commercial episode. According to studio exit polling, the audience was evenly split among the sexes with 68% of opening frame customers aged 25-years and younger.
The session’s $150 million-plus in ticket sales largely went to catching up with seasonal releases and constantly shifting awards contenders. In the latter group, almost all potential Oscar nominees were holding their ground with only Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom shaping as a casualty.
Apart from Cate Blanchett in the lead actress category, there are no seeming locks in major categories though the landscape of nominees has dwindled down to a manageable lot. There are fewer than a handful of pictures, including Her, Inside Llewyn Davis and Nebraska, that are primed to expand with the announcement of the Academy’s ballot.
Nonetheless, that trio and the films already active in the marketplace aren’t likely to get the sort of Oscar Boost that once palpably existed in domestic theatrical. The big stakes for all these pictures now reside in international and ancillaries. And while those venues are largely invisible to North American viewers, they can put big smiles on studio executives and foreign sales agents’ faces.
