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?