By Chris Kavan - 12/06/15 at 08:46 PM CT
It was a winning weekend for Hollywood after a few stumbles recently, the weekend was up nearly 23% over the same weekend last year as the top 12 brought in just under $90 million. The post-Thanksgiving weekend is usually one of the quieter release dates of the year, and while this weekend didn't break from that tradition, but it was surprising thanks to an unexpected surge from a Christmas-themed horror films. Otherwise, the biggest news came from the unexpectedly large drop for Pixar's latest film and a good start for Spike Lee in limited release.
1) THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2
For the third weekend in a row the top spot went to Jennifer Lawrence and the huge ensemble cast of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2. Dipping 64.2%, the final Hunger Games film brought in another $18.4 million for a new total of $227.1 million. The film is still trailing Mockingjay - Part 1 by about 14%, but on the international side it has earned nearly $296.8 million - which is better than the original Hunger Games $286.4 million. But it will have a lot of work to top any of the films on either the domestic or worldwide front - its $524 million total is still well shy of the $694.4 the original film brought in and unless it can score in other foreign markets, I don't see it reaching that number. As a whole, it's still an excellent result and the studio isn't going to be wringing their hands over the numbers.
2)
KRAMPUS
Many people (myself included) didn't give Krampus much of a chance at leaving a lasting mark on the box office. All those people were wrong. Director Michael Dougherty, the man behind the new Halloween cult film Trick 'r Treat (really, if you haven't seen it - do yourself a favor and put it on your list ASAP), now has another holiday horror film to be proud of. Krampus opened a strong seconds with $16 million - and, on a budget of just $15 million - the film is guaranteed to be money-maker, even if it drops hard (as many horror films are wont to do) in the coming weeks. Compare that to the downright terrible Victor Frankenstein (dropping nearly out of the top 20 in its second weekend) and it looks even better. I think the campy B-movie horror setup, the Christmas theme and the fact it was one of the slower weekends of the year were all a factor in making this a minor hit. I will definitely be hitting this up on the streaming side and will be interested to see how it holds up - a "B" Cinemascore for a horror film is actually on the high end, so this might have some decent legs - plus, who doesn't want to take grandma and little Timmy to see a demonic version of Santa tear some sh*t up?
3)
CREED
Pretty much running neck-and-neck with Good Dinosaur, Creed may fall to 4th, but for now it has the slight edge - and the better result, so I'm putting it ahead. Creed fell about 48% in its second weekend - a decent hold for the boxing drama that has gotten a lot of attention. With another $15.54 million in the bank, Creed now stands at $65.1 million. That is about double its reported $35 million budget and it should have no problem hitting $75 million next week - we'll see how close it gets to the $100 million mark, but even if it falls short, it should have a great run. The success has made director Ryan Coogler the front runner for the upcoming Black Panther film - and based on these results, that sounds like an excellent idea.
4)
THE GOOD DINOSAUR
Coming in just behind Creed (at the moment, anyway) is Pixar's The Good Dinosaur with $15.51 million. The worrying number for Pixar is the 60.4% the film dropped. If that number holds, it will be the worst second-week drop for any Pixar film (topping the 60.3% of Cars 2) and, at just $75.9 million, it is also going to be one of the, if not the, lowest-grossing Pixar films as well. If it continues to drop, it may reach only about $130 million total, which would put it at over $30 million below A Bug's Life $162,798,565. It may still be too early to tell if that is going to be the case, but signs aren't pointing to anything good right now, but it has a few weeks left to turn things around.
5)
SPECTRE
Rounding out the top five is the latest James Bond film, Spectre. With a drop of about 58%, Spectre took in $5.4 million to raise its total to $184.5 million. The film continues to play strong internationally, as it climbs ever closer to $800 million with a $792 million total - and counting. It has now passed Fast & Furious 6 ($788 million) and has the second-highest international total for any Bond film, trailing only Skyfall. We'll see if it can manage to hit $200 million on the domestic front, but Spectre isn't going to have any trouble making its money back.
Outside the top five: Spike Lee's latest film, Chi-Raq had one of the better openings for the directors at $1.25 million in 305 theaters (topping Oldboys disappointing $885 back in 2013). The film has been making the rounds and represents the first theatrical venture for Amazon. We'll see if this response results in an expansion, but for Lee, it looks like a win.
Carol continued to play well in limited release. The film (still in just four theaters) has the best per-screen average at $36,810. It added $147,241 (21st place - up from 25th last weekend) for a new total of $817,119. They are slow-playing this one, but I have to think this will expand at some point.
Next week is also going to see just one new wide release, In the Heart of the Sea, Ron Howard's drama based on the true story behind the seminal novel Moby Dick.
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