Poor Liam Neeson… his second sequel to a very clever, brilliantly marketed low-budget movie is only the second best January opener of all time. Sigh. Taken 4 at 64?

Selma is a delicate piece of box office analysis, in that it is a serious historic drama, it is racial, and there is really no good January comparison to make. If you want to push, the fairest comparisons are from 2012, when choral competition film Joyful Noise opened to $11.2m on 2735 screens and ended up with $31 million. Or from the same year, there was Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which was nominated for an Oscar, held on six screens until Oscar nominations (a variation), then went wide to 2,630 screens and had a $10 million weekend and in time, a $32 million cume.

Reach back a year to the October opening of 12 Years A Slave and you’ll see that the Oscar winner never had a single weekend as big as this. But Selma held to a lot fewer screens before expansion and then immediately expanded to 50% more screens than 12 Years ever had in any given weekend. (2179 screens to 12 Yrs‘ 1474 high) 12 Years A Slave (which had about the same budget as Selma) did $39 million before Oscar nominations and ended up with $57 million domestic.

I think that Selma ends up right between the 2012 examples and 12 Years… in the 40s somewhere. There is a much more enthusiastic, motivated audience than Extremely Loud had. But I don’t see how it makes up most of the $27 million head-start 12 Years had going into Oscar nominations weekend.

The number is fine. I will be very cranky if there are stories about how this may not be enough. (Yes, I am looking at you, New York Times.) It would take some big hairy balls to make that argument with frontrunner Boyhood at $24 million. There have only been 24 weekends with a per-screen of over $100,000 in history. American Sniper is the first to ever achieve that for 3 weekends.

And frankly, stories about how the box office for this film has been damaged by the LBJers will also be a load of crap.

Malcolm X never got to 1250 screens in 1992, made $48m domestic, and didn’t get nominated. Bobby (which wasn’t really about Bobby Kennedy) got to 1670 screens, made $11 million domestic, and didn’t get nominated. The Butler (also not really about the presidents who were served) was amongst the most financially successful of these films… certainly the biggest box office. $116 million domestic… no nomination.

Oliver Stone got Best Picture nominations for two of his three title-character historic dramas. JFK, all the way back in 1991, was never on as many as 1,400 screens, but that was also the era of the February Oscar nominations announcement, so the December release had $58 million in the bank before being nominated and added another $12 million. Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July maxed at 1434 screens, but also managed a significant gross – $49 million – before February 13 nominations, adding $20 million after (and losing to Driving Miss Daisy… ahem). And Nixon never got to 1,000 screens, did $12 million, and didn’t get nominated.

If you look at this history, what strikes me is that “movie star = box office.” Anthony Hopkins has never been a big box office draw as anything but Hannibal Lecter, brilliant actor though he is. But Denzel (still rising at the time, but Denzel), Kevin Costner at his height, and Tom Cruise all did good business with these movies (though not hitting $100m was considered a blemish on Cruise at the time and Costner had $100m domestic grossers on either side of JFK.)

The Butler was an extraordinary anomaly that somehow didn’t feel like History because it was one man’s story, but had the advantage of some of the most famous guest-starring appearances in history… a dramatic Night at the Museum, if you will. It was more along the lines of The King’s Speech, which was “a true story,” but didn’t carry the burden of being directly about someone with whom we were deeply familiar.

I am guessing that Selma will not get to $48 million domestic… but will be nominated. Without a movie star. Without high-profile director (going into the release, at least). Expecting more would be a bit ungracious. And who knows? Maybe Selma will break out and do more. Anything is possible. Historically, however, the expectation would be that this and next weekend (a 4-day holiday in honor of the film’s lead character)will be the height of Selma‘s box office run.

And another note… not sure when “All The Way,” the Bryan Cranston-starring LBJ drama from Broadway will land on HBO, but it was acquired almost exactly a year ago to be made for the network on what would have to be a pretty short schedule. Hmmm…

Dynamic duo of disappointment (to some of us, at least), Into The Woods and Unbroken, both passed $100 million domestic this weekend. I often caution that The Academy is more middlebrow than pundits think. Could these films be in the Best Picture mix on Thursday, surpassing some of the hot critics’ darlings? Yeah. it’s that kind of year. This is the same argument that still holds out hope for Gone Girl to get a Best Picture nomination.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 should pass Guardians of the Galaxy as #1 film of 2014 by this time next week… possible a couple more days.

And the contenders chart three days after nominations closed… including the still amazing American Sniper per-screen of over $135,000. There have only been 27 $100k per-screen weekends in movie history. American Sniper is the first time any film has done it 3 times. Only two other films have done it more than once… both Disney animated films (Hercules and The Princess and The Frog). Obviously, there are not a lot of times where a film stayed on few enough screens to hit this number for 3 weeks. (Only one film has ever hit this number on more than 6 screens, Precious, on 16.) But Warner Bros and Clint Eastwood are sticking to their release plan… sure and steady… oh so Eastwood.

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