Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, two movies demolished the competition and everything else in the top ten fell way behind the curve. Catching Fire and Frozen together took in almost 75% of the box office. Catching Fire was particularly impressive, as it grossed $74 million over the the three day weekend, and an astonishing $110 million since Wednesday. It's $48 million ahead of what the first movie did, which makes it likely to finish over the previous film's $408 million dollar gross (it also has a chance to hit $1 billion worldwide, now that international numbers are much higher than the first film's). It's sitting at $296 million total at the moment, but set to keep going strong through Christmas.
Disney's Frozen also had a colossal opening, amassing $66 million through the three day, but $93 million over the five day holiday weekend, which beats the record set by Toy Story 2 in 1999, which opened with $80 million. The movie played 57% female and earned the rare "A+" Cinemascore, so word of mouth on this one should be very strong, and make it the go-to movie for family audiences through December. Other openings this weekend bombed, as Jason Statham's action flick Homefront earned just $6.97 million (9 million since Wednesday) and Spike Lee's Oldboy tanked with $1.2 million after being dumped in theaters with poor reviews and very little promotion.
Top 5:
- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire- $74.5 million
- Frozen- $66.7 million
- Thor: The Dark World- $11.1 million
- The Best Man Holiday- $8.5 milllion
- Homefront- $6.97 million
In limited release news. Philomena debuted this weekend to land in the top 10 with $3.8 million, suggesting good word of mouth and a bright future, as Judi Dench will be sure to start raking in the Best Actress nominations soon, and director Kasi Lemmon's Black Nativity opened to $1.5 million in 1500 theaters, which is less than impressive considering the budget ($17 million), and doesn't signal much of a shelf life going forward. Next week it's a quiet weekend, with just the wide release of Out of the Furnace and the limited release of Spike Jonze's Her. See you then!
