Let’s skip the preamble and get to the obvious news: “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” opened huge this weekend, as everyone was expecting. The “Star Wars” spinoff movie debuted with $155 million domestic, tallied another $135.5 million overseas, and gave Disney a total of global launch of $290.5 million. Very impressive numbers. It’s the 12th-best opening weekend of all time domestically, coming in behind “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” and the second-best December opening ever behind “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Indeed, the saga movie remains untouchable, with ‘Rogue One’ $92 million off the opening mark of J.J. Abrams‘ flick which kickstarted the franchise again. At its current pace, ‘Rogue One’ is looking to finish at $600 million domestic with a total of $1.3 worldwide, making it the biggest movie of 2016. Disney, who had already cautioned they weren’t expecting the film to be a $2 billion-plus barrier breaker like ‘The Force Awakens,’ will still be more than pleased. While they are claiming a reported budget of $200 million, I’m sure the actual figure is much higher (those six weeks of reshoots certainly weren’t cheap), but the reviews have largely been positive, as has fan reaction, and the mouse house can rest easy they’ve delivered another smashing hit for the Lucasfilm property.
As you might imagine, with moviegoers lining up for ‘Rogue One,’ other cinemas were quiet at the multiplex, none more so than the more-than-3,000 screens showing “Collateral Beauty.” Will Smith‘s critically savaged drama launched with an anemic $7 million, the worst wide opening debut of his career — even “The Legend Of Bagger Vance” made more money. It’s certainly a bit of a kick in the teeth for the actor, who can’t seem to get Oscar season right lately, with last December’s “Concussion” — the second worst wide opening release of Smith’s career — launching with similarly dismal numbers. The actor’s upcoming slate includes the Netflix fantasy action flick “Bright” and two more “Bad Boys” movies, and I’d guess that Smith will be getting on the phone to Warner Bros. about that “Deadshot” spinoff sooner rather than later, because I can’t imagine he’ll be getting easy greenlights for awards-season vehicles anytime soon.
Elsewhere at the box office, “La La Land” continues to do musical magic, launching into the top 10 this weekend, earning $4 million from just 200 screens. “Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them” has crossed $500 million overseas, and is expected to break $800 million worldwide by time the holidays are over.
In limited release: Denzel Washington‘s “Fences” did decently, with $128,000 from 4 screens, while “Neruda” earned $28, 265 from a trio of cinemas.
1. “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” — $155 million
2. “Moana” — $11.6 million ($161.8 mil.)
3. “Office Christmas Party” — $8.4 million ($31.5 mil.)
4. “Collateral Beauty” — $7 million
5. “Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them” — $5 million ($207.6 mil.)
6. “Manchester By The Sea” — $4.1 million ($14 mil.)
7. “La La Land” — $4 million ($5.2 mil.)
8. “Arrival” — $2.7 million ($86.4 mil.)
9. “Doctor Strange” — $2 million ($226 mil.)
10. “Nocturnal Animals” — $1.3 million ($8.8 mil.)
I was in a sold-out showing of COLLATERAL BEAUTY on NYE, along with a crowd of openly sobbing theatre goers. We left with all the satisfaction of having seen a SCROOGE/IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE double-header for the first time! Maybe someone is pulling a fast one with the theatre receipts on this movie. You know, like the industry says never happens [wink, wink].