No surprises at the box office this weekend. Universal’s Fifty Shades of Grey opened to strong numbers as expected, and it broke a few records along the way. With Monday being Presidents Day, the film will finish with an estimated 4-day haul of $90.6 Million. That figure is a record for the holiday weekend.
The opening is second to 2004’s Passion of the Christ, which is the top R-rated opening with $83.8M. Last Monday, in Scott Sawitz’s Monday Morning Critic column he expressed that the trilogy would be a dumpster fire for moms the same way the Twilight series was for their daughters. Now this coming weekend the numbers could dip considerably showing that the property can’t retain an audience or build upon the opening weekend with repeat viewings. However, Fifty Shades jumped 21% Saturday with another $36.679M (it opened with $30.3M with $8.6M attributed to Thursday night showings). Nevertheless, female audiences have dominated and made it success. Though, only 41% of the viewers are over the age of 30.
Second place went to Kingsman: The Secret Service, an homage to British spy movies. It was nice counter programming that guys could sneak out and see while their ladies enjoyed Christian Grey’s ass on screen. Estimated to only earn $20M, it performed above expectations with $35.6M. It is the biggest opening with Colin Firth as lead, and for director Matthew Vaughn, the opening is second to his X-Men: First Class ($55.51M).
Paramount’s The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water continues to soak up profits with a third place finish and a total of $30.54M. Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper (read our review), now in its eighth week of release, surpassed $300 Million with a $16.4M weekend. That’s good news for Warner Bros. as Jupiter Ascending (our review) is descending as it struggles in the U.S. Another bad genre investment was Universal’s Seventh Son with $4.1M. Budgeted around $95M, in ten days it has made $13.4 Million.
In terms of Best Picture nominees, the only one in the top ten is The Weinstein Company’s The Imitation Game (review). In circuit for twelve weeks, it has earned approximately $79.6M. Fox Searchlight’s Birdman and Focus Features’ The Theory of Everything have made $36M and $33M, respectively. Sony Pictures Classics’ Whiplash has been in theaters for 19 weeks now, and the $3.3M feature has made a little more than $10M in limited release. Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, despite being released on home video in January, it still on circuit and even added 76 locations in its thirty-second week of release to earn $42.5k.
The biggest notable limited debut was What We Do In the Shadows starring Jermaine Clement. The vampire comedy opened in two locations and had a per-screen average of $32.9k as it finished the weekend with $65.8k.
The movies that will try to dethrone Fifty Shades of Grey this upcoming weekend include comedies The DUFF and Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and Disney’s latest sports drama, McFarland, USA, starring Kevin Costner. Yeah, it’s a safe bet that Fifty Shades will be number one again this time next week.
01. Fifty Shades of Grey – $81.67 Million
02. Kingsman: The Secret Service – $35.6 Million
03. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water – $30.54 Million ($93.6M)
04. American Sniper – $16.4 Million ($304M)
05. Jupiter Ascending – $9.43 Million ($32.5M)
06. Seventh Son – $4.153 Million ($13.4M)
07. Paddington – $4.15 Million ($62.3M)
08. The Imitation Game – $3.5 Million ($79.6M)
09. The Wedding Ringer – $3.4 Million ($59.7M)
10. Project Almanac – $2.7 Million ($19.56M)
