Weekend Box Office: Fire and Ice

As expected, the ‘Hunger Games’ sequel held onto the top the spot at the box office. Not only did the movie win the actual weekend with $74.5 million, it dominated the Thanksgiving holiday week as well. After ten days, ‘Catching Fire’ has pulled in $296.5 million domestically and $573 million worldwide, which is only $118 million away from the total of the first film. However, don’t assume that it was the only winner this holiday weekend.

Frozen‘ marks the best debut for a Disney film in years. The animated musical earned $26 million from Wednesday and Thursday showings, plus $66.7 million during the actual weekend. Over the first five days of its wide release, the $150 million family flick earned $93 million, which is higher than the comparable Thanksgiving openings for ‘Toy Story 2‘ and ‘Tangled‘.

Disney has three movies in the Top 10 this week, two of them in the Top 5. The #3 spot went to ‘Thor: The Dark World‘. In his fourth weekend, the hammer-swinging superhero brought in another $11.1 million, carrying the film’s domestic total up to $186.7 million. That’s higher than ‘Captain America‘ and the first ‘Thor‘. While the domestic total may not seem all that high, the international numbers are where the big success lies. Worldwide, ‘The Dark World’ has grossed $591.1 million.

The Best Man Holiday‘ dropped to fourth place in its second weekend, adding another $8.4 million to its impressive $63.4 million 17-day haul.

In fifth place, the Jason Statham/James Franco action flick ‘Homefront‘ earned nearly $3 million over Wednesday and Thursday, but only brought in $6.9 million over the weekend.

Black Nativity‘ opened even worse, earning a little more than $1 million over Wednesday and Thursday and $3.8 million over the weekend. These numbers put the movie in eighth place. Even so, neither ‘Homefront’ nor ‘Black Nativity’ earned the award for Worst Debut of the Weekend.

No, that would be Spike Lee’s English-language remake of the controversial and gritty Korean thriller ‘Oldboy‘. Despite debuting on 583 screens, the film barely grossed $850,000. Another $400,000 came in on Wednesday and Thursday, but that’s not nearly enough to help the $30 million flick become a success. The movie’s $1,458 per-screen average is worse than any title in the Top 10. After this failure, it’s unlikely that FilmDistrict will give it a wide expansion.

Top 10:

1. ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ (Lionsgate) – $74,500,000

2. ‘Frozen’ (Buena Vista) – $66,713,000

3. ‘Thor: The Dark World’ (Buena Vista) – $11,108,000

4. ‘The Best Man Holiday’ (Universal) – $8,491,000

5. ‘Homefront’ (Open Road) – $6,970,000

6. ‘Delivery Man’ (Buena Vista) – $6,931,000

7. ‘The Book Thief’ (Fox) – $4,850,000

8. ‘Black Nativity’ (Fox Searchlight) – $3,880,000

9. ‘Philomena’ (Weinstein) – $3,789,000

10. ‘Last Vegas’ (CBS) – $2,785,000

1 comment

  1. William Henley

    Do we have a per-screen average on The Book Thief? I could only find 3 theaters within 30 miles of me that is playing it, and there must be 20 theaters within that radius, if not more.

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