Box Office Weekend: Hobbit Stays On Top
While it may have had a comparatively rough ride (and remains the lowest-earning of the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings movies), The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies proved Hobbits can still be surprising, earning an estimated $41.4 million, losing a little less than a quarter of the opening weekend audience and raking in $168.5 million in domestic earnings (and a hefty $573.6 million in worldwide take, a success by any measure). Speaking of success, the final weekend of 2014 proved to be one of the better weekends of the year as well, as second and third-place finishers Unbroken and Into the Woods brought in an estimated $31.7 million and estimated $31 million, respectively, though both films are being elusive about their production costs.
Meanwhile, the weekend even spelled better luck for most of the top ten. A Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb made an estimated $20.6 million and gave the struggling film a shot in the arm while Annie, making an estimated $16.6 million, did not pick up quite as much but weathered its critical storms quite well. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 also pushed up in its bid to come close to (but now looking less likely to dethrone) the domestic success of Guardians of the Galaxy with an estimated $10 million for the weekend.
In fact, as The Imitation Game slid up a few slots as it entered wide release with an estimated $7.9 million and Wild picked up an estimated $5.4 million in the tenth-place slot, only two films faltered over the weekend. The first was The Gambler, the Mark Wahlberg remake of the 1974 James Caan vehicle, which opened to an estimated $9.3 million…along with mixed critical reception and a fair distance before making back its $25 million budget. The second is Exodus: Gods and Kings, which has managed to match its budget thanks to overseas revenue, but remains a massive domestic bomb, its estimated $6.8 million not only one of two revenue drops in the top ten this week, but also only $52.5 million in domestic earnings.
Weekend Box Office (December 25th – December 28th)
- The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies…$41.4 million
- Unbroken…$31.7 million
- Into the Woods…$31 million
- A Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb…$20.6 million
- Annie…$16.6 million
- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1…$10 million
- The Gambler…$9.3 million
- The Imitation Game…$7.9 million
- Exodus: Gods and Kings…$6.8 million
- Wild…$5.4 million
Seth Paul
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