This weekend's box office charts are deceiving in their rankings. Lego Batman and the Fifty Shades sequels topped the weekend but both opened well below their predecessors while #3 was a huge success. John Wick's second outing doubled its original's opening weekend gross suggesting that the fanbase grew exponentially once the 'first chapter' was available for home viewing. This kind of thing we used to see far more of in the early days of VHS but now in the age of franchises, generally you don't see that kind of word-of-mouth "discovery" growth. You're either a behemoth or you're not.
Three more items of note that don't really show in these charts...
The documentary Kedi about street cats in Istanbul was crazy popular albeit on one screen. It had the weekend's highest per screen average -- an incredible $40,000. As a crazy cat lady I'm dying to see it. I will make time this week, I will!
The now long-running Elle, boosted by its Best Actress nomination, quietly crossed the 2 million mark at the box office this weekend. Sony Picture Classics played it very cool with this one -- while pushing Huppert's campaign hard -- and it paid off. It took the film 9 weeks to eke out 1 million but only 5 more to cross 2 million with the added boost of that key Oscar nomination.
But other arthouse films haven't been so lucky at translating their Oscar nomination into tickets. The Red Turtle ($331K after 4 weeks in theaters) and Land of Mine ($23K in its first week) are still struggling to find their audiences, despite being very good films.
TOP WIDE
01 Lego Batman Movie $55.6 NEW
02 Fifty Shades Darker $46.7 NEW
03 John Wick Chapter Two $30
04 Split $9.3 (cum. $112.2)
05 Hidden Figures $8 (cum. $131.4) Podcast
06 A Dog's Purpose $7.3 (cum. $42.5)
07 Rings $5.8 (cum. $21.4)
08 La La Land $5 (cum. $126) Production Design, Jacques Demy Influence, Costumes, Original Musical Rarity, Podcast, Nathaniel's Top Ten
09 Lion $4 (cum. $30.3) Review, Interview with Brierleys, Cocktail with Kidman, Podcast
10 The Space Between Us $1.7 (cum. $6.5)
TOP LIMITED
01 I Am Not Your Negro $830K (cum. $1.8) Review, Oscar Nominated
02 Jolly Lib 2 $780K NEW
03 Oscar Nominated Shorts $660K NEW
04 The Salesman $261K (cum. $724K) Review, Interview, Farhadi Not Coming to Oscars
05 20th Century Women $233K (cum. $5.1) Top Ten of the Year, Interview, Podcast, Reviewish
06 Jackie $210K (cum. $13.2) Podcast
07 Paterson $178K (cum. $1.2) NEW
08 Un Padre Tan Padre $160K (cum. $1.9)
09 Duckweed $160K NEW
10 Toni Erdmann $130K (cum. $687K) American Remake, Screenplay, Review, The Longest Oscar Nominees
What did you see this weekend?