Frozen took the #1 position at the box office, pulling off the rare feat of finishing second in its opening weekend only to finish first in its second weekend. The Disney animated feature brought in $31.6 million this weekend, bringing its domestic cume to $134.3 million, while it has managed $55.9 million in foreign territories thus far.
In second is The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, adding another $27 million to its total, which has now risen to $336.7 million domestically as its total worldwide haul thus far reaches $673.4 million, only $18 million shy of the first installment’s worldwide total and it has only been 17 days.
The weekend’s lone new wide release was Out of the Furnace, which brought in $5.3 million from 2,101 theaters. Not exactly an impressive result, but I must say, I am surprised by the “C+” CinemaScore, I thought for sure it would be an “F”. This isn’t exactly a general audience-friendly film.
It’s a bit of a sad state of affairs for Spike Lee‘s Oldboy, which fared even worse in its second weekend than it did in its first, dropping 67% for a total of just $296,000. However, a couple of awards-hopefuls such as Philomena and Inside Llewyn Davis are making a case for themselves with moviegoers.
Philomena has now been in theaters for 17 days and is currently playing in 835 theaters. This weekend it managed to add another $2.3 million to its total, bringing its domestic total to $8.3 million. Dallas Buyers Club scored another $1.5 million, Nebraska brought in $545,000 from 113 theaters and is now up to $2.2 million, 12 Years a Slave another $1.1 million and following the death of South African leader and icon, Nelson Mandela, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom made $77,700 in only four theaters.
Finally, the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis was massive in only four theaters, bringing in $402,000 for a $100,500 per theater average. Not too shabby I’d say, but let’s see how it does once it starts reaching out to the rest of the country, where I hope it catches like wildfire, but fear many will shy away. The studio, meanwhile, wasn’t shy about sharing some facts concerning the opening:
This is obviously well above the previous Coens limited record of $41,890 PSA (A Serious Man) in 2009. Looking at the past decade (and excluding the El Capitan live show premium) this puts Inside Llewyn Davis in the #7 slot for PSA on opening weekend. Above There Will Be Blood in two locations ($95,370 PSA) and Midnight In Paris in six locations ($99,834 PSA) and just below Blue Jasmine in six locations ($102,011 PSA).
Next weekend sees the limited release of American Hustle and Saving Mr. Banks while The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is sure to take the #1 spot as it and Tyler Perry’s A Madea’s Christmas go wide.
I know everyone is saying this latest Hobbit is “better than the first one”, which is basically saying nothing at all, but I really wonder how it will perform. The first film made $84.6 on its opening weekend, any chance Smaug comes close to that?
