Hi everyone! Anne Marie here with the weekend box office. We're about a week away from the first big releases of the year, so the news is mostly underwhelming. We had a handful of new releases this weekend with mixed results. Chappie, South African director Neill Blomkamp's third scifi film with a social message, underperformed in its opening weekend, making it Blomkamp's poorest opening yet. This probably won't affect his involvement in the Alien reboot, but I'm sure there are some sweating execs out there at Sony right now. The world gave a collective shrug to Unfinished Business, the Vince Vaughan vehicle that I kept forgetting about, even though it's been aggressively marketed. Other than that, things mostly faded, with Focus and Kingsman maintaining their unsteady hold, while post-Valentine's Day 50 Shades of Grey went soft and Jupiter Ascending finally crashed.
TOP OF THE BOX OFFICE
Click on the highlighted titles for past articles on that film
01 CHAPPIE $13.3 NEW
02 FOCUS $10.2 (cum $34.6)
03 SECOND BEST MARIGOLD HOTEL $8.6 NEW
04 KINGSMAN $8.3 (cum $98)
05 SPONGEBOB MOVIE $7 (cum $149)
06 50 SHADES OF GREY $5.6 (cum $156.4)
07 MCFARLAND USA $5.3 (cum $29.4)
08 THE LAZARUS EFFECT $5.1 (cum $17.4)
09 THE DUFF $4.8 (cum $26.1)
10 UNFINISHED BUSINESS $4.8 NEW
In bolder news: American Sniper became the #1 movie of 2014 outgrossing the second Hunger Games sequel and Guardians of the Galaxy's franchise launcher.
In happier news: Second Best Marigold Hotel opened in only 1,573 screens this weekend, but managed to make it to the #3 spot on the Box Office charts with the highest per screen average: $5,467. This is wonderful news for the Judi Dench and Maggie Smith fans of the world, though considering its low $8.6 opening, we can safely conclude this was an off weekend for movie watching.
What did you watch this weekend?