Cold weather sucks. It’s as simple as that. Anyone who tells you different is lying through his chattering teeth. Nevertheless, it is the first weekend of the year at the cineplex,so let us see if the people were up to braving the cold to get 2014 off to a good start.
It’s fitting that the number one film of the weekend would include a snowman that daydreams of summer warm weather. Yep, Frozen opened big and has a remained a huge word-of-mouth crowdpleaser. Even as it has yo-yoed from its second-place wide opening – going to first, then second, then third, then second again to finally first place again – it has battled the likes of The Hobbit Part 2: Electric Boogaloo and Anchorman 2: We Love The ’80s Edition. And yet with its $20.7 million, adding to a domestic total that’s just a few mil shy of $300 million, you get a sense that not even Disney knew how big a hit it had on its hands. Worldwide it is sitting at an estimated $640 million, can it make to $900 million overall? Methinks that’s too lofty a number. Maybe $840 million.
Opening in second, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones out-spooked Bilbo and the gang with $18.2 million. Costing only $5 million it’s already made its production budget back and then some. But it looks as if the law of diminishing returns has finally started to catch up to the PA franchise, much in the same way it befell Saw and its endless sequels. It seems that the new year seems to kick of with some horror release as counter programming, which just seems strange to me. Nevertheless it has worked to some effect (two year’s ago it was The Devil Inside with $33 million).
As for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug it dropped from first to third place earning an estimated $16.3 million. Even with the dip in top ten seeding, it has still made $750 million worldwide.
Battling it out fourth were two films with awards aspirations, The Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle. Martin Scorsese’s Wolf took fourth with $13.4 million. Hustle was nipping at the spot with $13.2 million. Once estimates becomes actuals final seeding may be reversed. Both films, while of different time periods, offer up varying degrees of cons and hustles to achieve prosperity in the good old US of A. Trailing behind both, but not lacking in hairstyles and mustache lacquer was Anchorman 2 with $11.1 million, crossing $100 million, the once-celebrated mark of box office success distinction, in the process.
On the back end of the top ten with have some Disney magic (or is it chicanery) in the VH1 Behind the Music, uh I mean Behind the Movie special about the making of Mary Poppins, Saving Mr. Banks ($9.1 million), followed by Ben Stiller’s “Hey look at me, I can do drama!” The Secret Life of Walter Mitty ($8.2 million) and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($7.4 million). And rounding out the list is Grudge Match ($5.4 million), a film in which the marketing campaign has switched from blurbs from film critics to tweets from random folks who enjoyed the movie. Yeah, because I really care what @TheHornGuy really thinks about a comedy pitting Jake LaMotta against Rocky Balboa.
1. Frozen (Buena Vista) – $20,722,000 ($297,838,000)
2. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (Paramount) – $18,200,000
3. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Warner Bros.) – $16,250,000 ($229,634,000)
4. The Wolf of Wall Street (Paramount) – $13,400,000 ($63,295,000)
5. American Hustle (Sony) – $13,200,000 ($88,700,000)
6. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (Paramount) – $11,100,000 ($109,180,000)
7. Saving Mr. Banks (Buena Vista) – $9,057,000 ($59,320,000)
8. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Fox) – $8,200,000 ($45,669,000)
9. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Lionsgate) – $7,400,000 ($407,488,000)
10. Grudge Match (Warner Bros.) – $5,410,000 ($24,920,000)
