BOX OFFICE REPORT
December 5-7, 2014(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)
TOP 51. THG: Mockingjay - Part I (21.6 million)2. Penguins of Madagascar ($11.1 million)3. Horrible Bosses 2 ($8.6 million)4. Big Hero 6 ($8.1 million)5. Interstellar ($8.0 million)
As the Ramones would say, "Second verse, same as the first." With no major wide releases this week, the Top 5 stayed the same, but their order shifted around a bit. Yet Mockingjay: Part 1 remained at No. 1, falling a pretty steep 62 percent in its third weekend. It's only a day away from being the No. 2 movie of the year, but $300 million is looking increasingly unlikely, which is far less than its predecessor.
Penguins of Madagascar held on to No. 2, but it's only at $49.5 million. That's not anything close to what Fox was hoping for, but will make up for it internationally, like almost everything else these days. But it's still proving what I think is a weird trend: unless it's just completely dead at the box office, not every animated movie will go over like gangbusters.
Horrible Bosses 2 jumped up to No. 3, but it still didn't make a lot more than Big Hero 6 or Interstellar, which have both been out a lot longer. I'll never understand how Interstellar did such mediocre business here, but there are always mysteries at the box office.
Outside the top 5: - This Weekend's Indie Champ: The Imitation Game, the prestigious biopic about code-breaker Alan Turing, repeated with a truly impressive $50,250 on only eight screens.
- Wild, Reese Witherspoon's woman vs. the wilderness tale, averaged $30,000 on 21 screens.
- Nightcrawler expanded again, adding 687 more theaters and bringing its total up to $30 million.
Next week: Exodus: Gods and Kings gives Moses the Gladiator treatment. It will be No. 1, but I'm predicting a wholly uninspiring debut, somewhere around $30 million.
