Weekend Box Office: Double-0 Seventy Three Million

Following the critical and box office success of ‘Skyfall’, the James Bond franchise is still killing it. At that same time, Charlie Brown, Snoopy and company proved that they’re still relevant and bankable too.

Although Daniel Craig’s fourth 007 film, ‘Spectre‘, opened to $15 million less than franchise-best ‘Skyfall’, it still had no problem topping the box office. From 3,929 locations, the 24th Bond film grossed $73 million. With stiff competition on the horizon, ‘Spectre’ doesn’t stand a chance of nearing the domestic total of ‘Skyfall’ ($304.3 million), but it’s still likely to bow around $200 million. After a record-breaking small international roll-out, the film saw great numbers as it expanded to additional overseas markets. It earned $223.1 million from international showings, giving it a worldwide total of $296.1 million. That already makes it the eighth-highest grossing Bond film.

The Peanuts Movie‘ had a great opening weekend in North America, where it drew $45 million from 3,897 locations. The $99 million animated family flick has nearly three weeks before the next competing kids’ movie, Pixar’s ‘The Good Dinosaur’, opens. ‘Peanuts’ is projected to end its theatrical run in the mid $100 million range.

Despite ‘Spectre’ and ‘Peanuts’ bringing stiff competition, the third, fourth and fifth place titles all had only mild drops in attendance. ‘The Martian‘ slipped 21% and added $9.3 million to its $197 million six-week domestic total. By the start of this coming weekend, the Matt Damon sci-fi disaster movie will cross the $200 million mark. This weekend’s totals make it Ridley Scott’s highest-grossing domestic picture. The new $458.4 million worldwide total also made it Scott’s highest-grossing worldwide picture.

In its fourth week, ‘Goosebumps‘ fell 29% in attendance and added $6.9 million to its domestic run, which now sits at $66.4 million. Its slow international roll-out has resulted, so far, in $25.8 million, for a worldwide total of $92.2 million.

Thanks to a slight 25% drop in attendance, ‘Bridge of Spies‘ added $6 million in its fourth week. The movie’s domestic box office sits at $54.9 million. Slowly expanding overseas, the international total is currently at $16.9 million. The film has grossed $71.9 million, which isn’t too great for a Steven Spielberg production, but with great holdover and more international markets to come, it’s definitely not performing poorly.

Of the four notable limited releases, ‘Miss You Already‘ is the only one to not have a strong weekend. In fact, it flopped. From 384 locations, the cancer drama only pulled $572,160 and a poor per-screen average of $1,490.

On the opposite end of the spectrum was the true-story journalism drama ‘Spotlight‘. Unlike the similar ‘Truth’, which bombed, ‘Spotlight’ reeled in audiences to the five locations showing it. With an impressive $60,455 per-screen average, it opened to $302,276. Also debuting at five locations, the acclaimed Sundance drama ‘Brooklyn‘ opened to $181,000 and a strong $36,200 per-screen average. It’s likely that Open Road and Fox Searchlight will expand their respective titles sooner rather than later.

Trumbo‘ debuted to a good-but-not-great $77,229 from five locations, giving it a per-screen average of $15,446. I know that distributor Bleecker Street will expand the film over the next few weeks, but there’s no telling how far the expansion will go.

Top 10:

1. ‘Spectre’ (Sony) – $73,000,000

2. ‘The Peanuts Movie’ (Fox) – $45,000,000

3. ‘The Martian’ (Fox) – $9,300,000

4. ‘Goosebumps’ (Sony) – $6,965,000

5. ‘Bridge of Spies’ (Buena Vista) – $6,086,000

6. ‘Hotel Transylvania 2’ (Sony) – $3,550,000

7. ‘Burnt’ (Weinstein) – $3,003,000

8. ‘The Last Witch Hunter’ (Lionsgate) – $2,650,000

9. ‘The Intern’ (Warner Bros.) – $1,810,000

10. ‘Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension’ (Paramount) – $1,650,000

6 comments

  1. A $200 million domestic total for Spectre will be perceived as a huge failure. The movie reportedly had a production budget of $300 million, not counting promotion and distribution (which will typically double that total). It’s going to have to do huge business overseas just to break even.

  2. Stupid question, but shouldn’t Ridley Scott’s domestic record be based on his highest grossing film in his native United Kingdom? Because that’s what ‘domestic’ means, right?

    • Al

      No. You’re looking at it the wrong way. Ridley Scott makes Hollywood blockbusters. In this context, domestic means country of origin, in regards to the film. It has absolutely nothing to do with where the director is from. Now, if Ridley was a filmmaker that primarily made UK films (movies that were funded and distributed by a UK studio, and priority released in the UK), you would find which one of his films made the most money in the UK, and that would be the UK domestic record. In this write up, no such thing is being discussed. Ridley makes American movies that are primarily intended for the US domestic box office. ‘The Martian’ is now his biggest domestic hit. (It’s also his biggest worldwide hit).

      • More to the point, this blog is based in the United States and is written for an audience primarily in this country. When we talk about “domestic” box office, we mean United States box office, regardless of who made the movie or even where the film itself may be from.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *