BOX OFFICE SHOWDOWN – DEC 31-JAN 3 – NEW YEAR, SAME NUMBER 1

Every week we dissect the good, the bad, and the bombs of the Aussie box office world. No talk of box office would be complete without mention of the US, so we’ll also take a look at what’s hitting big, what’s not, and where our refined Aussie movie palates differ from our blockbuster loving American brethren. Let’s dig in…

After a week off, we’ve got a bit to talk about. This weekend, The Peanuts gang got a CGI makeover in Snoopy & Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie and a new Point Break arrived to disappoint moviegoers everywhere.

AUSTRALIAN BOX OFFICE – DEC 31 – JAN 3

BOX OFFICE SHOWDOWN - AUSTRALIA DEC31-JAN3

Source: Urban Cinefile

The Records Continue Falling: The Force Awakens continued it’s dominance of the box office for the third weekend in a row, and has now blasted past the all time gross of Titanic ($57 million) to settle into 2nd on the all-time list, and with no signs of stopping, it now has Avatar ($115.6 million) firmly in it’s sights. Amazingly, it also finished as the No. 1 movie of 2015, with only 2 weeks of grosses counting towards it’s total, TWO WEEKS! Finishing the year with $51.7 million, it was about $11 million clear of 2nd place Furious 7 ($39.9 million). An astounding achievement.

Also Making Bank: Santa and the New Year were good to all of the Boxing Day releases, to varying degrees. Clear winner of that group is the Mark Wahlberg/Will Ferrell starrer Daddy’s Home, which has kept it’s 2nd place position for two weekends now, racking up $3.5 million this week (a 24% increase on last weekend), and nearing the $10 million benchmark. Also doing well is Pixar’s second release for the year The Good Dinosaur which is doing the best out of the animated offerings, adding another $2 million (up 4%) to bring it’s total to $7.2 million. Both of these should continue to do well as long as schoolkids are on holidays.

The second tier of Boxing Day releases are neck and neck, and couldn’t be more different. Leading this weekend, if not overall, is the Jennifer Lawrence drama Joy, which is getting some awards traction for her performance. She mopped up $1.7 million this frame in 5th place (up 26% on last week), to bring the movie’s total to just over $5 million. Squeaking in behind that in 6th is Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Road Chip which has sung it’s way to a $5.4 million total after banking another $1.6 million (up 1%), no doubt hit harder by the debut of Snoopy.

joy-movie-stills

Missing The Point: It seems that Australia at large did not heed our calls that Point Break was a useless exercise in rebooting, and showed up to the tune of $1.9 million to get their extreme sports on. I’m hoping that this is just because all those people have seen Star Wars three times already and wanted something new in the action genre. That has to be it, right?

Ah Nuts: I’m guessing that the intense competition for family audiences, four movies catering to that demo being released around the same time, spelled a less than stellar debut for Charlie Brown and his best pal Snoopy. The Peanuts Movie only managed a $1.2 million debut in 7th place. By all reports, and our own reviewer’s opinion, the movie is great, so I’m hoping that families find it in the coming weeks before school is back in session.

Shock Sherlock: The biggest surprise of the weekend turned out to be the event screening of the one-off Sherlock special, The Abominable Bride. The TV special was released on 21 screens before it’s streaming premiere, uncovering an amazing $36K average to bring in $773K for the weekend. The distributor will no doubt be pleased by the enduring appeal of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective, and specifically the Benedict Cumberbatch incarnation.

Sherlock The Abominable Bride

Over in the U.S, the top ten was the same just in a different configuration, as The Hateful Eight expanded into more theatres.

US BOX OFFICE – JAN 1-3

BOX OFFICE SHOWDOWN - USA 1-3 JAN

Source: Box Office Mojo

An Ongoing Force: Sitting atop the chart for the third weekend, and toppling another couple of records in the process, The Force Awakens has now flown past the $700 million mark in record time and will topple Avatar’s all-time US domestic record ($760 million) today, Tuesday their time. It also broke Avatar’s third weekend record ($68.4 million) with an gigantic $90.2 million gross for the New Year period. It now sits at No. 4 on the worldwide gross list, behind Jurassic World, Titanic, and Avatar, still needing another $1.2 billion to hit the No. 1 spot. Can it get there? I’ve already eaten my words regarding records and this movie, so I’m just going to say it’s highly possible, this movie is rewriting records daily.

Who’s Your Daddy: Sitting in the shadow of a behemoth is no easy task, but Daddy’s Home is eking out a nice little gross in the slipstream of Star Wars. Adding another $29.2 million this week, it’s total now sits a hair away from the magic $100 million mark. It’s sure to pass the total of the last Wahlberg/Ferrell pairing, The Other Guyswhich ended it’s run with $119 million back in 2010.

daddys-home-wahlberg-ferrell

Not So Hateful: Jumping 7 spots into 3rd place, and adding about 2,400 theatres in the process. Quentin Tarantino’s latest opus follows a successful limited release with an OK wide release. Tarantino’s two previous movies Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained both opened to bigger grosses, $38 million and $30.8 million respectively, so it’ll be a little disappointing for the Weinstein company to see these totals after they spent so much money fitting theatres with the necessary 70mm projectors. Movies released in this period tend to have pretty good legs though, and if it gets awards traction as well, which is always likely with Tarantino, then they may see more return for their investment.

New to cinemas this week: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler laugh it up in Sisters, and Leo DiCaprio gets his revenge on in The Revenant.

So there you go folks, any surprises? Everything pan out just as you suspected? Hit us up in the comments and let us know what you’re enjoying at the movies. Also, if there’s anything you’d like to see us cover in the world of box office, speak up and let your opinion be known!

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