Box Office: Grandpa Debuts, Revenant Holds, Carol Falls

What did you see this weekend? Aside from three new films catering to three different audiences (adult comedy with Dirty Grandpa, horror with The Boy, YA sci-fi with The Fifth Wave) which grossed about the same this weekend, moviegoers stuck to the familiar. They were still enamored with Leo's bear fight and that galaxy far far away. Some people are still catching up with Oscar hopefuls as all the Best Picture nominees continued to do solid business or see new life (especially Room which had been fading to a whisper and now has finally lept into wide release adding another $1.4 million to its cumulative gross).

This could be a still from Neighbors really, outside the Abercrombie & Fitch store. How many movies will Zac Efron star in where the joke is how fit and sexy he is compared to his co-star?

Spotlight and Brooklyn, which didn't wait for Oscar love to expand were already word of mouth successes so their new energy is gravy for them. But as we discussed last weekend, the Best Picture snub has killed Carol's momentum and now it's losing theaters having never spread to even 800 (so if you haven't yet been, find it quick). The Danish Girl will also be dropping fast given its similar fate (decent nomination count, no Best Picture). That's the danger of resting your box office and release patterns on Oscar attention alone, if anything goes wrong, you collapse. Nevertheless Carol will love on forever as classics do and that's the best any movie can hope for really. A lot of classics were barely blips at the box office in their day.

BOX OFFICE WIDE
01 The Revenant $16 (cum. $119.1) Costumes, Production Design 
02 The Force Awakens $14.2 (cum. $879.2) Review, Podcast, BB-8
03 Ride Along 2 $12.9 (cum. $59.1)
04 Dirty Grandpa  $11.5 new
05 The Boy $11.2 new 

BOX OFFICE LIMITED
01 Ip Man 3 $.7 new 103 screens
02 Carol   $.6 (cum. $10.5) 692 screens Oscar Snub, Adapting Highsmith, First Impressions
03 The Danish Girl  $.5 (cum. $9.7) 794 screens Podcast, Screenplay
04 Anomalisa $.3 (cum $1.4) 143 screens Podcast, Review, Festival Capsule
05 45 Years  $.2 (cum $.7) 40 screens Capsule

Box Office: Post Nomination Bump and Faulty Marketing Hooks

Ride Along 2, the umpteenth consecutive hit for the inarguably bankable Kevin Hart (and to a lesser extent Michael Bay's latest explosion filled thriller) serves as our monthly reminder --as if we needed one -- that the bulk of moviegoers would rather watch shoot-em-ups than Oscar nominated films. But congrats to Kevin Hart. He's on his fifth year of consistently big opening weekends now. If he's not one of the highest paid stars out there he needs to find new representation.

Meanwhile in alternate universe Oscar land: The Revenant showed amazing legs in its second wide release weekend, suggesting that Leonardo DiCaprio has yet another gargantuan hit on his hands. Leading the Oscar nominations surely didn't hurt. [More after the jump...] 

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The Two Leonardo DiCaprios (and Weekend Box Office)

Leonardo DiCaprio is, as an actor, inarguably most attracted to roles where he is mentally or physically suffering often while mourning a dead wife (His infamous "Dead Wives' Club," already quite extensive, got another member this weekend with the spectral presence of his Native American love, never named, in The Revenant). But Leo DiCaprio, the celebrity and movie star, is more tied in the real world to the wildly wealthy playboys that occasionally dot the dramatic resume (Celebrity, The Great Gatsby, Wolf of Wall Street). This is not just because he commands an astronomical fee for acting and has been known to enjoy the fruits of his labor, but because his films in turn attract even deeper pools of money. In other words: he's worth what they pay him. Enter The Revenant, a brutal, arduous, and arguably very quiet drama with brief but intense flashes of excitement, making a mint in its first weekend. It's something virtually no other star could pull off. DiCaprio is just about the only movie star that can convince moviegoers en masse to show up for straight dramas these days -- superheroic powers, franchise branding, or stylized action not required.

More...

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What did you see this weekend?

It was bound to happen given that earth's population and movie ticket prices constantly grow but The Force Awakens will be overtaking Avatar (2009) for #1 hit of all time in the US (NOT adjusted for inflation) sometimes this week. The new-old adventure from that galaxy far far away is just $20 million shy of that particular record now.

Beyond Star Wars there's quite a lot going on though -- including solid ticket selling moves by various Oscar players -- which we'll discuss after the jump... 

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Box Office: Jennifer Lawrence Generates Her Own Light in the Shadow of Star Wars.

Jennifer Lawrence's Joy starpower couldn't match the double-teaming bankability from Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg for the comedy Daddy's Home but she's still got nothing to worry about as Hollywood's current most popular actress pulling in 17.5 million in Joy's opening weekend despite middling reviews, a glut of new wide releases, and two hot button limited bows, all hoping for those same Christmas dollars.

Meanwhile every movie in theaters is trying to stay visible under the galactic-sized shadows of The Force Awakens which has already topped half a billion in the US box office in record time and should leapfrog Jurassic World's once unthinkable $652 domestic gross pretty soon at this rate.  We'll also know fairly soon if the Star Wars saga's sheer cultural size affects the Oscar race. The question is not fully restricted to whether it will be nominated for this or that or a wholla lotta that like the '77 starter-kit, but whether it will drown out conversations about the newer or the more struggling Oscar campaigns and we end up with less movement in the Oscar race from where we were in say, October, because people are thinking of little else than Star Wars right now.

BOX OFFICE WIDE
(Christmas Weekend)
01 Star Wars: The Force Awakens $153.5 (cum. $544.5) Review, parody fun Emo Kyle Ren
02 Daddy's Home $38.8 *new* 
03 Joy $17.5 *new*
04 Sisters $13.8 (cum $37.1) Review 
05 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip  $12.7 (cum. $39.3)
06 Concussion  $11 *new* Review
07 The Big Short $10.5 (cum. $16) Review & SAG Ensemble 
08 Point Break $10.2 *new* 
09 The Hunger Games Finale $5.3 (cum. $264.6)  Hunger Games & Oscar 
10 Creed $4.6 (cum. $96.3) Review

Christmas proved to be a death wish for many awards hopefuls since behemoths like STAR WARS and talking points like HATEFUL EIGHT & THE REVENANT sucked all the oxygen out of the room for other films

BOX OFFICE LIMITED
Excluding previously wides
01 The Hateful Eight $4.5 100 screens *new* Twitter Review, Worst of Year
02 The Danish Girl $1.5 440 screens (cum. $3.2) Eddie Redmayne
03 Carol $1.0 180 screens (cum $2.8) Reviewish, Podcast, Its Genius
04 The Revenant  $.4 4 screens  *new* parody fun Revenant Bear
05 Youth  $.3 149 screens (cum. $1) Review, Podcast, Jane Fonda
06 Mr Six  $.2 30 screens *new*
07 Trumbo  $.2 30 screens *new* Podcast, SAG Ensemble 
08 Room $.08 100 screens (cum. $4.7) Premiere, FYC Production Design
09 45 Years $.06 3 screens *new* Charlotte Rampling
10 Macbeth $.04 30 screens (cum. $.8) Review, Podcast

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?