This weekend’s two wide movie releases both made major splashes at the domestic box office – but according to Christians, most people made the wrong decision.
Despite rumors that religious organizations were buying out entire showings of ‘Son of God’ for their congregations and that pre-sale tickets were through the roof, Liam Neeson’s latest action thriller ‘Non-Stop‘ finished the weekend in the top spot. From 3,000 locations, the picture pulled in $30 million, which is more than $8 million higher than the director’s last team-up with Neeson, ‘Unknown’. Having seen the film and been completely bored by it, I don’t expect the success to last very long.
Comprised mostly of existing footage from last year’s ‘The Bible’ miniseries, Fox’s ‘Son of God‘ followed close on the heels of Neeson. From 3,200 locations, the PG-13 Christ story opened to a strong $26.5 million, which is nowhere near the volume that R-rated ‘The Passion of Christ’ earned when released almost exactly ten years ago. ‘Passion’ earned $26 million on its first day alone and finished its opening weekend with $83.8 million. Considering that you can watch most of ‘Son of God’ at home right now via ‘The Bible’, I’m not sure how well ‘Son of God’ will hold over.
It took the solid debuts of those two films to finally dethrone ‘The Lego Movie‘ in its fourth weekend. In third place, the animated flick hopped over the domestic $200 million milestone by adding another $21 million to its haul.
Fourth place went to ‘The Monuments Men‘, which earned another $5 million and is now up to $65.6 million. Meanwhile, ‘3 Days to Kill‘ plummeted 60% and dropped from second place to fifth. The spy thriller earned $4.9 million and has a ten-day total of $20.7 million.
The expansion of Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘The Wind Rises‘ rose significantly with $1.6 million from less than 500 locations.
The re-release of Will Ferrell’s ‘Anchorman 2‘ with 763 new jokes flopped harder than ‘Land of the Lost’. The extended cut played on more than 1,300 screens yet only pulled in $1.3 million. It appears that no-one wants to pay full price to see what they’ll be able to own on Blu-ray in several weeks.
The Russian World War II picture ‘Stalingrad‘ didn’t fare so well despite opening on 3D and IMAX screens. From 308 locations, the Sony-distributed picture only earned $500,000.
One of the biggest pieces of news this weekend is that Disney’s ‘Frozen’ has become the 18th movie to cross the billion-dollar mark.
Top 10:
1. ‘Non-Stop’ (Universal) – $30,019,000
2. ‘Son of God’ (Fox) – $26,500,000
3. ‘The Lego Movie’ (Warner Bros.) – $21,015,000
4. ‘The Monuments Men’ (Sony) – $5,000,000
5. ‘3 Days to Kill’ (Relativity) – $4,900,000
6. ‘RoboCop’ (Sony) – $4,500,000
7. ‘Pompeii’ (TriStar) – $4,300,000
8. ‘Frozen’ (Buena Vista) – $3,611,000
9. ‘About Last Night’ (Screen Gems) – $3,400,000
10. ‘Ride Along’ (Universal) – $3,065,000
William Henley
Son of God was selling out in my area. Theaters really should have been showing it on multiple screens. People were scalping tickets to shows. The auditorium I was in, the largest at that theater, was packed – there wasn’t a free seat in the place. I think theaters in my area underestimated the number of people trying to get in. People are prebuying tickets for several days in advance because shows are selling out days in advance.
I am willing to bet that if they had of shown the show on more screens, it would have been the winner this weekend.
And how was it? Yeah, it was largely footage from The Bible, and the CGI scenes looked like they were rendered in SD, but for the most part, I enjoyed it. It seemed like it was recut footage, and some expanded and additional scenes. I found it much more enjoyable than the miniseries, and probably one of the best Jesus films I’ve seen.
Timcharger
“People were scalping tickets to shows.”
At least the heathens who worshiped Neeson didn’t do that.
Josh Zyber
They’re just demonstrating their good Christian values, by manipulating the capitalist market to exploit others for personal gain. Exactly like Jesus would have wanted…
Timcharger
Yes, yes; that passage is mistranslated. The one about throwing out money changers from the temple. The more accurate translation is: ticket scalpers. Apparently the attraction 1,200 Years A Slave was a tough ticket to get.
William Henley
I am sure he would have overturned the concession stands as well. “You have turned it into a Den of Theives!”
William Henley
More likely, entire churches and groups purchased tickets, there were people who couldn’t make the shows, and were selling their tickets. When I say scalping, with only a few exceptions, most of these people were either giving away their tickets or selling them at face value. Although I did see a couple of instances where tickets were going upwards of $20 a piece (for the $5 theater)