I have been doing this long enough to have had arguments about films grossing $100 million domestic and being seen as disappointments. I was relatively new in writing about box office and the veteran box office people waved off this silly notion. This weekend, I suspect we will hear rumblings about a $100 million+ opening that is, somehow, disappointing. Silly. (Amazingly, if Star Wars: The Force Awakens doubles the best opening ever in December and opens to $170 million domestic in a few weeks, that will somehow be seen—in this case, only by fools—as a disappointment.)

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, unlike the final Harry Potter, is a franchise film that will be seen almost exclusively by the series’ hardcore base. And Lionsgate seems fine with that, as the advertising makes little, if any, effort to push the “come see the climax of a series that is about xxxx” agenda. It’s much more geared to people who are already invested. And they will be fine with that. As someone who bailed after the first film—even though I am a Francis Lawrence believer—I don’t feel welcome, even though the relatively positive critical hum has me intrigued.

Still, even with the feeling that you shouldn’t be going to see this film without having seen all the previous films, this THG-MP2 is heading to just under or just over $300 million domestic and carries the hope that it, like the Twilight finale, can keep expanding overseas. $400 million international seems like a lock. $500 million would make this the #2 film of the franchise, even if it’s the softest domestically. In this case, the movie will land in China, which Twilight never did… legally.

The other openers this weekend are Sony’s The Night Before and newly-minted distributor STX’s The Secret in Their Eyes. Neither is a happy story.

There are many things about The Night Before that seem flawed, starting with the very cool, but very uninformative stained glass ad campaign. The movie is a variation on After Hours and you really don’t know that from the ads. You get the classic comedy ad pitch, obsessed with the three or four jokes that did best in test screenings. I don’t care how hard the laughs in testing… vomit jokes are not a great sales tool for a wide release movie. Ironically, it is the quality of this film that is revealed in the fact that the jokes—as seen on TV—are not as strong as the laughs that come out of story in this film. That is one of the things I really liked about this movie. It’s a journey into taking the next step in life for these three old friends. They all have ideas of what they want on this holiday and they all need adjustment… and the world is there to adjust them, with a little help from (a little too much of a spoiler).

Now, it is possible that the filmmakers were the ones who wanted to hide the salami here (the salami, for all intents & purposes being Michael Shannon and his character). You’ll likely see new ads with him and the actual premise of the film in the next couple of days. But it may be too late… depends on the specificity of the ads and the size of the buy.

As for The Secret in Their Eyes… this is a remake of the Foreign Language Oscar winner of 2009… meaning, great foundation about which no one knows or cares. Julia Roberts, who is about ready for a second act of her career to begin, hasn’t really opened a movie in at least five years. Still, you have to go back almost 20 years to a wide opening as week for a picture led by Roberts… the dreaded (career-wise) Mary Reilly.

(Corrected for mistake about this being first STX release. Apologies.)

Carol opens on four screens and will do a solid $55k per screen or so.

And now, my first look at Oscar season box office…

RELEASED WIDE
Inside Out – BV – n/a – 356
The Martian – Fox – 2086 – 210.3
Straight Outta Compton – U – n/a – 161
Mad Max: Fury Road – WB – n/a – 154

Bridge of Spies – BV – 1532 – 63.8
Black Mass – WB – 232 – 62.4
Sicario – LGF – 285 – 45.6m
Steve Jobs – U – 326 – 17.5
Grandma – SPC – n/a – $6.9

STILL NOT WIDE
Mr. Holmes – Roadside – n/a – 17.7
Love & Mercy – Roadside – n/a – 12.6
Spotlight – Open Road – 598 – 3.3
Suffragette – Focus – 396 – 3
Room – A24 – 133 – 2.5
Brooklyn – Searchlight – 111 – 1.3
Trumbo – Bleecker – 47 – est 360,000
Carol – TWC – 4 -78,491
Beasts of No Nation – Netflix – n/a – .1

NOT YET OPEN
The Big Short
Concussion
Creed
The Danish Girl
The H8ful Eight
Joy
The Revenant
Youth

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