A great second weekend hold for Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and an excellent debut for Disney’s Frozen helped this year’s Thanksgiving weekend become a record-setting one on multiple fronts, among them the fact that no film has ever grossed north of $90 million over the five day holiday period. The two blockbusters dominated the North American box office, easily beating out Homefront, Black Nativity and the nationwide expansion of Fox’s The Book Thief and The Weinstein Company’s Philomena, all which yielded mixed results.
After scoring a record-setting debut for the month of November, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire showed some serious staying power by losing only 53% of its opening weekend audience. The norm for event pictures such as this one is usually 60-70%. Fire commanded the midweek with a $64 million haul during the Monday through Thursday period before earning another $74.5 million over the weekend on 4,163 screens. To date, the popular sequel has earned a superb $296.5 million domestically and $276 million from foreign markets. The five day haul of $110.6 million set a record for an overall gross for a movie during Thanksgiving weekend, surpassing the $82.3 million earned by the first Harry Potter film back in 2001.
At this rate, Fire should have no problem passing the $408 million earned in North America by the first Hunger Games film a year and a half ago. In doing that, Fire would also pass Iron Man 3 to become the highest-grossing domestic release of the year. While passing Tony Stark’s North American box office haul should be easy enough to do, beating Iron Man 3’s $1.2 billion global haul is highly unlikely. Katniss should stay at the number one spot again next weekend before relinquishing the throne to Bilbo Baggins and his pals as The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug begins its global conquest on December 13.
Not to be undone by the ongoing popularity of Catching Fire was the huge debut for the Disney 3D animated feature Frozen, which set a record for biggest ever for a film opening during Thanksgiving week. The critically-acclaimed family film opened Wednesday on 3,742 screens to earn $26.4 million in its first two days before adding $66.7 million over the weekend, bringing its first five days to a fantastic $93 million.
The film scored a solid 84% approval rating from the nation’s critics on Rotten Tomatoes and an even better “A+” rating from ticket buyers on CinemaScore. With such a huge opening in the bag and viewer feedback strong, Frozen should enjoy a long run at the box office similar to the studio’s Tangled, which also opened over the Thanksgiving weekend three years ago with $68.7 million in its first five days en route to a $200 million final domestic haul.
The news wasn’t as rosy for the five other features that opened to meek numbers. Open Road’s Jason Statham action flick Homefront arrived on 2,572 screens to earn a weak $6.9 million in its first weekend (five-day total $9.7 million), which was good enough to land in fifth place. Fox’s expansion of its Oscar hopeful The Book Thief to 1,234 theaters could only muster $4.85 million ($6.4 million since Wednesday) for seventh place, while Black Nativity (from its Searchlight division) earned a less-than-angelic $3.8 million from 1,516 theaters ($5 million since Wednesday). The Weinstein Company’s Oscar hopeful Philomena received strong reviews but could only manage $3.8 million from 835 theaters over the weekend. It’s total to date is $4.7 million. The studio is banking on year-end awards and word-of-mouth to keep the Judi Dench/Steve Coogan feature afloat through the holiday season.
Those mixed openings were nothing compared to the big turkey of the holiday weekend, Film District’s release of the Spike Lee remake of Oldboy. The $30 million remake opened on 583 screens to earn an embarrassing $850,000 this weekend. Its five-day take was a pathetic $1.25 million. The troubled $30 million production received largely negative reviews from the nation’s critics. Perhaps if Lee was allowed to keep the hour of footage he had to remove from his final cut, the film may have actually brought some people in. Maybe.
In its fourth weekend, Thor: The Dark World landed in third place while passing the $181 million final haul earned by its 2011 predecessor. The hit sequel earned $11.1 million from 3,286 screens to bring its overall domestic haul to $186.7 million. Thor and Loki should conclude their theatrical run with approximately $210 million. In fourth place was The Best Man Holiday with an estimated $8.5 million from 1,717 theaters. To date, the Universal hit has earned $63.4 million and should finish between $75-80 million. Disney’s Delivery Man fell to sixth place with $6.9 million while Fox Searchlight’s 12 Years a Slave occupied tenth with a $3 million weekend.
Next weekend sees only one film opening in wide release: the Christian Bale drama Out of the Furnace. The movie opens on four screens Wednesday prior to a 2,000 screen debut on Friday. Catching Fire and Frozen will stay exactly where they are right now.
– Shawn Fitzgerald
