Weekend Estimates: Hunger Games Unchallenged at Top
December 7, 2014
With no new wide releases, the weekend after Thanksgiving will see a comfortable victory at the box office for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1. Now playing in its third weekend, the film will gross around $21.6 million, taking it to a total of $257.7m, virtually equal with The Lego Movie in third place for the year. Weekend performances for returning movies were down across the board coming off the holiday, with, in the top 10, only Gone Girl and Birdman down less than 40%.
The weekend’s widest new release, The Pyramid, opened in line with expectations at $1.35 million, enough for ninth place.
The real action, however, is with the many Oscar hopefuls looking to stake a claim with some impressive box office results. Top of that list, for the second weekend running, is The Imitation Game, which will post around $400,000 from just eight theaters for an average of $50,000. Also having an very impressive weekend—arguably more impressive, given it’s playing in 21 locations—is Wild, which will open with about $630,000 for an average of $30,000. Both films are essentially selling out all shows.
Aside from those two, numbers are looking more modest, although Foxcatcher is still impressive with $574,000 projected from 75 theaters, for an average of $7,700.
Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, Foxcatcher, Gone Girl, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), The Imitation Game, Wild, The Pyramid