"La La Land" Lifts Off in Opening Weekend

What did you see this weekend? I've had the neverending winter cold so I've been totally out of it. Hope you've been enjoying more films than I! This weekend contained a spectacular debut for La La Land which grossed nearly a million in only five theaters. To put it in context that's about twice what Moonlight and Cafe Society were able to accomplish in their similar sized opening weekends which were considered quite strong at the time. It's about four-to-six times what other art house darlings of the year (like The Lobster, Jackie, Love & Friendship, A Bigger Splash) were able to manage in similar sized openings. Most of those films proved to have a ceiling around $9-12 million at the US box office but La La Land seems sure to cross over to mainstream success.

Also worth noting: A great weekend for the musical form in general since Moana stayed up top. 

TOP TWENTY
01 Moana $18.8 (cum. $145)  Review
02 Office Christmas Party $17.5 NEW
03 Fantastic Beasts $10.7 (cum. $199.3)
04 Arrival $5.6 (cum. $81.4)  Review and Podcast 
05 Doctor Strange $4.6 (cum. $222.3) Review
06 Allied $4 (cum. $35.6)  Review
07 Nocturnal Animals $3.1 (cum. $6.2)  Review and Podcast
08 Manchester by the Sea $3.1 (cum. $8.3) Review, Second Take
09 Trolls $3.1 (cum. $145.4) NEW
10 Hacksaw Ridge $2.3 (cum. $60.8) Review & Podcast

11 Miss Sloane $1.9 (cum. $2) Review
12 Almost Christmas $1.4 (cum. $40.2)
13 Bad Santa 2 $1.2 (cum. $16.8) 
14 Incarnate $1 (cum. $4.2) 
15 La La Land $855K NEW  Reviewish & How Rare Is It? 
16 Loving $623K (cum. $6.5)  Review and Podcast
17 Edge of Seventeen $620K (cum. $13.8) Review
18 Moonlight $589K (cum. $10.8) Review and Podcast 
19 Jackie $495K (cum. $869K) Review
20 The Accountant $460K (cum. $85)

"Arrival" Holds Strong While "Jackie" Tip Toes Into Theaters

What did you see this weekend? I caught up with Hacksaw Ridge and Krisha (which keeps winning "new generation" style awards) and went to a Pedro Almodóvar talk all of which we'll try to discuss very soon. Until the box office charts and, behind the scenes at the moment, podcast editing and Oscar chart revamping...

Not much changed at the box office this weekend with very few films opening but it's worth noting that Arrivalis proving to have very shapely legs. i.e. it's not dipping like you're supposed to dip each week and moved UP the chart this weekend indicating very good word of mouth...  

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What did you see over the holidays?

How did you spend Thanksgiving weekend? I watched Moana again with the honorary nieces, saw a preview of Things to Come (yet another Isabelle Huppert triumph) with cinephile friends and caught up with a screener or two. 

What did you see over the holiday weekend? The actual box office results are after the jump...

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Fantastic Box Office and Where To Find It...

Where to find it? With franchises, naturally. Audiences are quite predictable that way.

Fantastic Beasts won the weekend easily and though it's opening wasn't really at the Harry Potter level it's got the Thanksgiving weekend coming up to make mountains of money to store in Gringotts to help fund further endless more installments. We'll never be free of Harry Potter. But, dear reader, I'm personally skipping this one. Those films just weren't my scene so unless this one also nets Oscar nominations I need a break; four years off wasn't enough! Among the other new films opening Edge of Seventeen and Bleed for This  failed to excite moviegoers landing toward the bottom of the top ten. Ang Lee's soldier drama experiment Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk had a disastrous wide expansion taking in less than 1 million dollars in its first weekend...

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Box Office: Arrival Opens Well for Amy

What did you see this weekend? Doctor Strange (reviewed) continued to be the top draw at the box office tower but Arrival had a strong debut for a thinking person's non-action oriented sci-fi epic. (It's Amy Adams best headline opening since Enchanted !) But will mainstream audiences like it or will we see a big drop next weekend after word gets out that it's, well, a thinking person's movie? Will Oscar come calling or will they prefer the less genre-oriented fare this year? What's your best guess? Meanwhile in limited release...

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