Also disappointing was The Secret in their Eyes, which opened at #5 with just $6.6 million.
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He attributed this weekend’s showing to a down marketplace. With Thanksgiving providing a boost through the week, Spectre should become only the second Bond movie ever to gross $200 million domestically.
“Thanksgiving represents a good opportunity for a really strong second weekend”, Dergarabedian said of “Mockingjay – Part 2″.
The weekend’s other newcomers just couldn’t hang with Katniss, 007 or Charlie Brown.
The Seth Rogen holiday comedy The Night Before opened in fourth place behind The Peanuts Movie with US$10.1 million, which was within Sony’s expectations. It cost $19.5 million to produce, and is the latest in a string of films pitched at adult audiences such as “By the Sea” and “Steve Jobs”, to whiff at the box office this fall.
“This is a movie that people love”. New in theaters we’ll have Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, the boxing movie Creed, which breathes new life into a 40-year-old franchise, and Victor Frankenstein starring Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy. The remake of an Oscar-winning Argentinian thriller of the same name earned a disappointing $6.6 million for a fifth place finish.
With this weekend down 11 per cent from last year, it remains to be seen whether 2015 will indeed be a record-breaking US$11-billion year as many predicted at the outset.
Those numbers dwarfed every other competitor this week, of course, but “Mockingjay’s” gross still fell short of expectations and landed far away from the $55.1-million opening day previous year for “Mockingjay – Part 1“.
“We’re in the home stretch”, Dergarabedian said.
Following are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through yesterday at U.S. and Canadian cinemas, according to Rentrak. Films like this are always hard to predict final grosses for as it depends on the release strategy and how wide Open Road will let the film go, but $30 million to $40 million seems like a safe bet. “The Peanuts Movie” finished third, picking up $12.8 million to push its stated total to $98.9 million. If Saturday night delivers a large helping of the date-night crowd, the picture might cross $10 million by close of business Sunday. SECRET IN THEIR EYES and SPOTLIGHT didn’t do well either, but I’m sure both of them are hoping for a boost come awards season. If that trend holds, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 may be the only one to miss the $300 million mark in North America.
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Bridge of Spies was down three in its sixth weekend to #10 with $1.9 million.
