Box Office Boom for Best Pictures...
Sunday, January 29, 2017 at 5:00PM 
Hidden Figures and La La Land both crossed the $100 million mark this weekend.
This weekend saw three Best Picture nominees re-expanding (Moonlight, Fences, Arrival) to capitalize on their Oscar nominations each adding a million plus to their already successful grosses. Arrival is so close to $100 million now ($97.3) but it will be still be a stretch to hit that milestone with its Blu-Ray release just two weeks away. In fact every Best Picture nominee that's still in theaters experienced a boost at the box office this weekend except Hidden Figures (which was already roaring) but that drama's neglible 11% drop continues to suggest a very long run to come.
The shadow side of this equation? That's what's happening to the prestige pictures that weren't nominated...
Silence lost over 1000 theaters and has only managed $6 million to offset its surely substantial budget. 20th Century Women was also down. And unless a miracle happens with Pedro Almodóvar's Julieta, long since removed from Oscar's foreign film race, it is looking likely that it will be one of his three least successful films in the US (the only real underperformers previously were The Flower of my Secret in 1996 and I'm So Excited in 2013).
But, Oscars aside, the big weekends for Split, A Dog's Purpose, and Resident Evil's "final" chapter remind us that many moviegoers aren't really thinking about Oscars when they head to the box office.
TOP WIDE (which we're defining as over 800 screens)
01 Split $26.2 (cum. $77.9)
02 A Dog's Purpose $18.3 NEW
03 Hidden Figures $14 (cum. $104) Podcast
04 Resident Evil: Final Chapter $13.8 NEW on the franchise
05 La La Land $12 (cum. $106.5) on the Costumes, Reviewish, and How Rare It Is!
06 xXx: Return of Xander Cage $8.2 (cum. $33.4)
07 Sing $6.2 (cum. $257.4)
08 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story $5.1 (cum. $520) Review
09 Monster Trucks $4.1 (cum. $28.1)
10 Gold $3.4 NEW
TOP LIMITED (under 800 screens - excluding previously wide)
01 Lion $2.3 (cum. $19.7) 575 screens Review and Nicole
02 Raees $1.8 NEW 265 screens
03 Un Padre No Tan Padre $1 NEW 312 screens
04 20th Century Women $938K (cum. $3.9) 650 screens Podcast, Top Ten, Billy Crudup, First Impressions
05 Jackie $665K (cum. $12.1) 508 screens Review and Interview
06 Buddies in India $190K NEW 55 screens
07 Paterson $173K (cum. $792K) 51 screens Review
08 Julieta $126KK (cum. $844K) 48 screens Review
09 Kung Fu Yoga $112K NEW 14 screens
10 Toni Erdmann $102K (cum. $380K) 20 screens Review, on the Screenplay
Oscar nominee Asghar Farhadi has been banned from entry into the U.S. to attend the ceremony in Feb. This is heartbreaking and unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/2PrwZWyBdw
— Tribeca (@Tribeca) January 28, 2017
Just outside the top ten in limited release was the debut of The Salesman (review, interview) in three theaters. That film should expect some momentum soon with word of mouth, Oscar buzz, and the awful controversy heading into the Oscars about Trump & Bannon's unconstitutional Muslim ban which is keeping Asghar Farhadi and team from attending the Oscars. Farhadi's previous Oscar winning masterpiece A Separation (2011) is the most successful foreign language film winner at the US box office this decade and the third most successful of the 21st century thus far (after Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and The Lives of Others).
What did you see this weekend?
Reader Comments (28)
Children of Men, V for Vendetta and The Neon Demon (one of these things is not like the other....)
Saw 20th Century Women, which I really liked. It was a wonderful respte from all the awful, awful events of the weekend. Annette Bening, Greta Gerwig, and Billy Crudup, et. al. were all wonderful.
I saw "Silence" this weekend and I found it pretty fascinating and deeply thought-provoking. It is quite shocking to me how poor it is doing at the box office and in the awards' season, considering how well Scorsese's (lesser) films usually do.
Aside from the weird decision to have Portugese characters speak English (it wasn't half as annoying as in case of "Kundun", though) it's a winner for me. Shame about Andrew Garfield's nomination for "Hacksaw Ridge", too - I think he was really special in "Silence".
Was release date the problem?
I saw the horrible "Splits"- a dull exploitation movie which wasted the talents of it's three leading actors. The effective trailer uses the best parts of the movie. We never see the twenty three personalities just a couple up to the ridiculous climax. If the movie had been rated R and made by a minor studio it would have gone directly to VOD. This is not "Sybil" just another girl in peril schlock dressed up as a serious thriller. And the use of child abuse makes it's specially questionable.
@Howler
There was never going to be a great time to release this movie, but this was a Cannes-Toronto-release-in-October movie through and through.
I saw the new Resident Evil movie. It's really bad. Some of the more recent entries were at least well made popcorn flicks, but this was just a mess. The editing cuts were so disjointed and fast moving that you couldn't see what was going on in fights. I'm not saying the Resident Evil films ever had particularly good plots, but this one made absolutely no sense. I wanted to be able to say at least the third act was good, but a twist in the final moments makes it incredibly stupid and just as bad as the rest.
I also rewatched The Handmaiden (love it).
I saw Silence and, although super sad and with some disturbing imagery, I also thought it was a winner and not the 'torture-porn' i was worried about at all. A very thoughtful, quite and well-made film.
My theater was packed though - there was only like one showing for it so there was a huge line (!) for that one showing.
My audience could not stop laughing at Kichijiro. The running gag with him worked great.
Garfield, Shin'ya Tsukamoto (heartbreaking) and Issei Ogata (very interesting performance choices IMO) were all just great.
Finally saw "Toni Erdmann" - and was almost completely mystified. So much dead air in that movie, and why did I just learn more about business consulting than I did about the characters?
Saw SPLIT. Liked it fine enough but like what Jargon says, lots of problematic details. With that said, it was a joy to see James McAvoy do his thing. Glad he's getting a non-X-Men mainstream hit that shows off his skills.
Saw Hacksaw Ridge. A very well-made, emotional film. Not perfect, particularly in that sometimes hokey first half, but all-around a very good one.
The generally negative response to it on this site is typical considering it's a kind of a "guy movie" and deeply religious as well. If you're truly progressive you'll forgive Gibson for his past and give the movie another shot.
I saw Silence earlier this week. It's a masterpiece. Really sad it's not getting more attention.
I rewatched The Handmaiden and Arrival. Both still fantastic. (Sold out for Handmaiden. College crowd. Made it really enjoyable.)
Also, my college had a 3-D film festival this weekend. I got to see Gravity, Dial M for Murder and Kiss Me Kate. Gotta say, Kiss Me Kate is probably the best 3-D film I've ever seen. They really went for it with all those ridiculous effects and it worked so well with the play within a play stagy tone of it.
I ended up watching Moulin Rouge! Within the first few seconds, I was already dazzled. It was directed with such amazing flare and the performances by Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor were nothing short of magical.
The films I saw this weekend are the 2 Lady Snowblood films. Awesome films.
Saw Lion. I was totally unprepared so I ended up on the floor sobbing. I could perfectly live without Rooney's character.
tonytr: I'm not on this site, but I'll probably still hate it, even disregarding my thoughts on religion. Take out the religion. Imagine the movie's main character is an ATHEIST conscientious objector. Is the violence still framed "correctly" for a movie from the perspective of a conscientious objector?
I'll echo the others here praising Silence. I wasn't sure what to expect going in to it and was floored about how thought-provoking and soulful it was. The performances were uniformly great especially Garfield and Ogata. Scorsese usually goes for bold choices in his direction and but was reserved here which really helped serve the story.
I agree that releasing it now was a terrible move as it got lost in the late December shuffle. They couldn't release it in March or April and really push it then? It seemed like it'd be a prime movie to release on Easter weekend; the advertisements could have really pushed the religious angle. In any case, I really believe that most of the movies nominated at the Oscars will be forgotten within a year but Silence will be one that people watch and discuss for years to come.
I must say @Nathaniel R, you have impeccable photoshop skills.
I spent this weekend catching up on The Night of, which I really started to enjoy after "The Incident" happens. Somehow the opening scenes really rubbed me the wrong way. I really love the cinematography and editing, and the characters are really cracking me up, which offsets some of the bleakness. Three episodes to go.
I rewatched both Moonlight and La La Land. Moonlight grew richer in my estimation. It was even more powerful the second time around. La La Land does not do well on second viewing. In fact I kind of got annoyed with it as the flaws were even more apparent. It's charming in no small part due to Gosling, but it is hollow to the core.
I saw La La Land. It tries too hard to be cute and hip, the songs are just okay, and the white man saves jazz motif is so tired and racist. Also, the chemistry between Emma and Ryan is almost nonexistent; much of the time, they seemed bored with each other (I could sympathize). I kept picturing Janelle Monae and Leslie Odom, Jr. as the leads, bringing some much needed charisma and vibrancy to the proceedings. And this is marching towards an Oscar sweep? Ugh.
This weekend I watched Moonlight and Elle, both for the second time. I have no idea what SHOULD be Best Picture this year, but Moonlight would get my vote from the nominees... On second viewing, Elle is probably my favorite film from 2016. The screenplay is so well crafted (little odd details make complete sense if you are tracking the thriller elements, such as the business with Richard's car in the first third of the film) and there are so many little touches in the direction and the music, I just marvel Verhoeven's confidence in fucking with the audience's expectations... In a fair world, that's Huppert's Oscar to lose.
NewMoonSon - Agreed. I was mostly entertained (but not enthusiastic) about La La Land when I saw it the first weekend it opened in Los Angeles, but a second viewing exposed a lot of flaws both technical and structurally... But this Oscar race seemed to be more about how movies made voters FEEL rather than appreciation of craft, so the bubbly on the surface, gloomy underneath film about attractive struggling artists becomes the favorite.
Also: I finally caught Cafe Society on Amazon Prime this weekend. Not one of Woody's better films of late (script was really unfocused) BUT one of the best LOOKING films of his entire career. Vittorio Storaro's lighting and the production design were absolutely gorgeous, deserving of Oscar nods.
20th CW & Silence suffered from a botched-up after Xmas release dates. In terms of their themes, These two pics need to be more widely released at least in Nov to build up their momentum and stronger words of mouth.
I believe Silence is at the cut-off of the BP race, the unenviable 10th spot & Scorsese is probably at the no. 6 or 7 spot in the Best Director's race.
Had Garfield been nom for Silence instead of Hacksaw, it will probably make the snub for Silence & Scorsese less painful, but I guess the herd mentality dictated tt Garfield shld be nom for Hacksaw instead as Silence came out way too late after he has been scoring multiple noms for Hacksaw.
Argghhhh....Arrival wld not have been so successful w/o Amy's intelligent interpretation & beautifully internalised performance!! So mad tt she missed the nom........
Are those Resident Evil movies super cheap to make? How's that still around? It's the 100th sequel.
V.: The budget for the Resident Evil film series has ranged from $35 million in 2002 to $65 million in 2010 and 2012. With the most recent instalment at a budget of $40 million in 2017? That's cheaper than the original if you adjust for inflation.
Well, I saw LA LA LAND again and, if anything, I liked it even MORE the second time. (Though agree with those who criticized the sound mix.) Oh sure, it's got flaws, but it brings such joy in watching it I don't care. And I don't remember crying the first time I saw it, but I was verklempt this time.
It's really a shame about 20TH CENTURY WOMEN - the more time passes since I saw it, the warmer my feelings grow towards it.
Finally saw Manchester by the Sea - really enjoyed a lot of it. I loved the way it showed grief - it wasn't the typical, glossy, cliched treatment Hollywood usually pushes. It's not always experienced on some clean, predictable timeline or manifests itself in obvious ways and this movie gets that.
Affleck really is pretty great in it. While I have a hard time fully supporting him due to his problems and I would still be VERY happy if Denzel won, I at least understand why his performance is getting singled out so often. Williams is also good although really it comes down to the one scene at the end and while it's very good, I also would've understood if she missed a nom this year. There were bigger supporting turns that got ignored.
I did find the operatic score to be way too intrusive at times and the movie did start to feel a little too long and meandering about 2/3 of the way through, but overall I really enjoyed it.
LION has to be going wider soon, right? Or is it Harvey's plan to just leave it there grossing $2-$3mil for a few weeks? Odd. In Australia it's on its way to becoming one of the highest grossing Aussie films ever. It opened at no. 1 last weekend, and this weekend it dropped <1% to stay on top.