Finally, a couple of big movies stopped the recent spate of flops by the new releases, as Spectre hit 73 million for the weekend, and The Peanuts Movie opened strong with 45 million. The big debut of the Bond film isn't surprising, since Skyfall was such a massive hit in 2012. Whenever a Bond movie is successful, the following entry opens huge, no matter what the reviews are. As such, Spectre delivered the second biggest 007 opening of all time, following Skyfall's 88 million bow last time around. It also got an "A-" Cinemascore, so expect it to do well in the coming weeks. It's already broken scores of worldwide records in its debut overseas, beating Skyfall's opening in the UK.
Meanwhile, the success of The Peanuts Movie was a little more surprising, since I'd questioned the loyalty to 60 year old comic strip characters in today's kids, but I guess those holiday specials still hold sway, which is nice to see. It earned 45 million and an "A" Cinemascore, so I may have to check it out myself. The top five were rounded out by The Martian, which fell even less than expected to make another 9 million, Goosebumps, bringing its total to 66 million, and Bridge of Spies, hanging on to cross 55 million total.
Top 5:
- Spectre- 73 million
- The Peanuts Movie- 45 million
- The Martian- 9.3 million
- Goosebumps- 7 million
- Bridge of Spies- 6.1 million
This weekend also saw the debuts of some major awards contenders in limited, as Spotlight opened the best on five screens, for a PTA of about 60k and a total of 303k over the weekend. Brooklyn was the other opener, also debuting on five screens for a pretty good PTA of 36k and 181k overall, while the Bryan Cranston biopic Trumbo was softer, bringing in 77k and a 15k per theater average. Of course, with Spotlight and Brooklyn it's important to keep in mind what happened to Steve Jobs after it's highest per screen average of the year last month, so these two will continue to platform out over the next few weeks and not go wide around the country. There's not a big release next week, with just the openings of Angelina Jolie's By the Sea, which was recently slaughtered by critics at the AFI Fest, and the Chilean mining drama The 33, so expect Spectre to hold the top spot at least until The Hunger Games comes out on the 20th. See you then.
