When it’s The Hunger Games. Unfortunately, that’s not the only new movie to perform below expectations.
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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. This is why the $101 million opening weekend gross of “Mockingjay” would in any way be counted as less than stellar. “Opening early seemed like a really good prelude to the Thanksgiving weekend, where it will expand beautifully”, said Rory Bruer, Sony’s president of worldwide distribution. Even among the fans of the original novels, the last book has been considered the let-down of the series. The latest James Bond movie was down a sharp 57 percent from last weekend.
Despite the weak opening, STX, which bought domestic rights with Route One to the film for $6.5 million, expressed confidence that “The Secret In Their Eyes” would find its audience over the holidays. This latest film was projected to surpass $300 million. Internationally, “Spectre” has grossed $524.1 million, giving it a worldwide total of $677.8 million. Matthew Harrigan, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities, said Monday that the $247 million opening for the fourth Hunger Games installment was “not exactly dystopian”, but argued new movies in the Lionsgate pipeline were key to feeding the bottom line going forward.
Christmas film Love The Coopers sank to sixth and $3.9 million, while The Martian fell a couple of places to seventh but still earned $3.7 million despite spending eight weeks in the charts. Now showing in eight global markets, the film is struggling to find an audience overseas.
With US$12.8 million, The Peanuts Movie finished behind Spectre and ahead of the Seth Rogen holiday comedy The Night Before, which earned an expected US$10.1 million. Also starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Nicole Kidman, director Billy Ray’s movie centres on a team of FBI investigators whose lives are thrown into torment when one of their number (Roberts) discovers that her daughter has been murdered. This remake was reportedly produced for $19.5 million, which will be tough to recoup with a slow start like this.
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Todd Haynes’ Carol opened to $248,149 from just four locations. If you’ve come this far and watched all of the movies, you might as well finish it, but if the franchise is new to you, you’ll be lost following Mockingjay Part 2. The violent gangster picture about the Kray twins saw Tom Hardy doing double duty as the crime boss brothers, but critics were lukewarm, and the picture nabbed a so-so $83,000 from four theaters for a per-screen average of $20,271.
