By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com
The Weekend Report
Exodus: Gods and Kings swept into the marketplace with an estimated $24.5 million to lead weekend movie ticket sales. The session’s other national newcomer was the raw romantic comedy Top Five that bowed to $7.1 million.
The exclusive bow of Inherent Vice generated a potent $336,000 box office from five pads and modest expansions for The Imitation Game and Wild maintained both pictures’ commercial momentum.
In the niches the Tamil import Lingaa posted an impressive $1.4 million gross from 136 engagements. There was also good news for the Chinese comedy Back in Time with a $228,000 tally from 19 screens.
Revenues from the frame were slightly more than $85 million that marked an 11% improvement from last weekend. It was a rather severe 43% drop from 2013 when the debut of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug arrived with $73.6 million.
There’s been a degree of head scratching about the mini-wave of biblically-inspired movies that began earlier this year with Noah. Exodus: Gods and Kings played heavily on the spectacle of the venerable saga and not so much on a contemporary metaphor and tracking indicated a solid bow somewhere in the range of $24 million to $28 million. Last weekend the film opened in 11 international territories to similarly strong but not quite epic figures.
Studio exit polling identified the opening crowd as 54% male with 54% of viewers aged between 18 and 34-years old.
Chris Rock’s inside showbiz Top Five was a big audience favorite at Toronto and hotly pursued by major distributors. Although not an awards contender it’s been put into the fray as counter-programming and following its excellent bow is hoping to build on word-of-mouth during the season.
The season thus far has been commercially disappointing and aside from The Hobbit finale could very well be the softest year end in a decade. Annie is perceived as the family viewing choice but there’s considerable reservation about it hitting a home run. There’s a comparable concern that there won’t be an award’s contender that gets a major box office boast. Such candidates as Unbroken, Selma and American Sniper haven’t received a lot of love from the spate of critics’ panels or even the Golden Globes in the past fortnight and will have to push their late starts and keep fingers crossed that Oscar voters saw and appreciated their respective virtues.
| Weekend (estimates) December 12 – 14, 2014 | |||||
| Title | Distributor | Gross (avg) | % chng | Thtrs | Cume |
| Exodus: Gods and Kings | Fox | 24.5 (6,990) | NEW | 3503 | 24.5 |
| Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 | Lionsgate | 12.9 (3,450) | -42% | 3731 | 277.1 |
| The Penguins of Madagascar | Fox | 7.3 (2,000) | -33% | 3667 | 58.9 |
| Top Five | Par | 7.1 (7,290) | NEW | 979 | 7.1 |
| Big Hero 6 | BV | 6.1 (2,080) | -24% | 2943 | 185.3 |
| Interstellar | Par | 5.4 (2,020) | -30% | 2692 | 166.7 |
| Horrible Bosses 2 | WB | 4.6 (1,450) | -45% | 3202 | 43.6 |
| Dumb and Dumber 2 | Uni | 2.7 (960) | -36% | 2842 | 82.1 |
| The Theory of Everything | Focus | 2.5 (2,080) | -5% | 1220 | 17.1 |
| Wild | Fox Searchlight | 1.6 (13,530) | 159% | 116 | 2.4 |
| Lingaa | Classics | 1.4 (10,220) | NEW | 136 | 1.4 |
| Birdman | Fox Searchlight | 1.3 (2,190) | 16% | 606 | 20.8 |
| Gone Girl | Fox | 1.0 (1,070) | -30% | 963 | 164.4 |
| The Imitation Game | Weinstein/Remstar | .89 (32,960) | 129% | 27 | 2 |
| St. Vincent | Weinstein Co. | .69 (680) | -35% | 1012 | 41.9 |
| Fury | Sony | .61 (840) | -33% | 726 | 84.3 |
| Nightcrawler | Open Road/Elevation | .59 (740) | -45% | 798 | 31.1 |
| The Pyramid | Fox | .57 (830) | -58% | 685 | 2.4 |
| The Homesman | Roadside Attractions | .38 (1,700) | -21% | 223 | 1.6 |
| Foxcatcher | Sony Classics | .37 (4,650) | -29% | 79 | 3.3 |
| Inherent Vice | WB | .34 (67,200) | NEW | 5 | 0.34 |
| Beyond the Lights | Relativity | .29 (640) | -60% | 459 | 14.3 |
| Whiplash | Sony Classics | .25 (1,630) | -21% | 154 | 4.8 |
| Back in Time | China Lion | .23 (12,000) | NEW | 19 | 0.23 |
| Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) | $81.75 | ||||
| % Change (Last Year) | -43% | ||||
| % Change (Last Week) | 11% | ||||
| Also debuting/expanding | |||||
| The Babadook | IFC | .12 (1,460) | 50% | 80 | 0.28 |
| Citizenfour | Weinstein Co, | .10 (960) | -27% | 105 | 1.9 |
| Force Majeur | Magnolia | 54,800 (1,070) | -33% | 51 | 0.93 |
| Expelled | Fox Home | 16,900 (5,630) | 3 | 0.02 | |
| Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks | Dada | 12,300 (1,760) | 7 | 0.01 | |
| Magician: Astonishing Orson Welles | Cohen | 6,400 (3,200) | 2 | 0.01 | |
| Domestic Market Share (Jan. 1 – Dec. 11, 2014) | |||||
| Distributor (releases) | Box Office | Market Share | |||
| 20th Century Fox (19) | 1636.3 | 16.90% | |||
| Buena Vista (16) | 1526.6 | 15.80% | |||
| Warner Bros. (23) | 1350.8 | 14.00% | |||
| Sony (21) | 1188.4 | 12.30% | |||
| Universal (18) | 1039.2 | 10.80% | |||
| Paramount (14) | 994.9 | 10.30% | |||
| Lionsgate (22) | 688.6 | 7.10% | |||
| Weinstein Co. (26) | 204.8 | 2.10% | |||
| Relativity (10) | 178.3 | 1.90% | |||
| Open Road (9) | 151.3 | 1.60% | |||
| Fox Searchlight (10) | 123.9 | 1.30% | |||
| Focus (11) | 110.7 | 1.10% | |||
| FreeStyle (10) | 104.3 | 1.10% | |||
| eOne/Seville (30) | 54.3 | 0.60% | |||
| Other * (335) | 305 | 3.10% | |||
| 9657.4 | 100% | ||||
| * none greater than 0.4% | |||||
| Top Limited Releases (Jan. 1 – Dec. 11, 2014) * | |||||
| Title | Distributor | Box Office | |||
| Boyhood | IFC/Mongrel | 24,060,571 | |||
| Birdman | Fox Searchlight | 19,469,207 | |||
| A Most Wanted Man | Roadside/eOne | 17,237,855 | |||
| The Theory of Everything | Focus | 14,623,183 | |||
| Nebraska * | Par | 11,669,238 | |||
| Dallas Buyers Club * | Focus/Remstar | 11,522,869 | |||
| Belle | Fox Searchlight | 10,726,630 | |||
| Magic in the Moonlight | Sony Classics | 10,541,058 | |||
| Island of the Lemurs: Madagascar | WB | 8,275,869 | |||
| Inside Llewyn Davis * | CBS/Mongrel | 8,107,748 | |||
| Cantinflas | Lionsgate | 6,382,924 | |||
| Jerusalem | NationalGeo | 6,058,260 | |||
| Meet the Mormons | Purdie | 5,950,924 | |||
| Cesar Chavez | Lionsgate | 5,571,497 | |||
| The Skeleton Twins | Roadside Attractions | 5,276,804 | |||
| The Wind Rises | BV | 5,209,580 | |||
| Journey to the South Pacific | Imax | 4,979,344 | |||
| Hubble 3D * | Imax | 4,865,691 | |||
| Snowpiercer | Weinstein Co. | 4,563,650 | |||
| Whiplash | Sony Classics | 4,511,611 | |||
| * does not include 2013 box office | |||||
