It was a familiar-looking weekend at the movies, with none of the new releases managing to out-perform the New Year’s top two hits.
Deadpool hung on to its top slot for a second week, with a big gross that most movies can’t even achieve in their first weekends. This is a massive hit — expect sequels, and expect more R-rated superhero movies. It’s the kind of success that will make other studios over-think about how this happened, and how they can recreate it. Here’s a hint: make your movies good. Spend more time on the screenplay. Be more creative with your casting. Focus on the art, not just the product.
At #2, Kung Fu Panda 3 stayed strong, with another very small decline from last week. It’s incredible how successful family films when there’s otherwise a dearth of competition at the box office. The animated sequel has now passed $100 million, and it can easily coast for another couple of weeks, until Zootopia arrives.
New releases Risen and The Witch came in at #3 and 4, respectively. The former is a modest success, coming in about in line with expectations, though it will likely sink out of sight rather quickly. The Witch, meanwhile, can be viewed more optimistically despite its smaller numbers. In addition to boasting the second-highest per-screen average in the Top 10, the horror film is an indie production that comes from the festival scene, not a studio product, so it will turn a profit much faster than other films. Plus, with rave reviews and strong word-of-mouth, this is one that has the potential to keep growing over the next few weeks.
How to Be Single slipped two slots down to #5 this week, while new biopic Race debuted at #6, which is surely to be a disappointment to everyone involved. Zoolander 2, meanwhile, fell three spots to #7, surely soon to be forgotten.
The two big Christmas hits came next, still hanging in there into their third months of release. At #8, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is slowly losing hold of its theatres, but still raking it in. The Revenant, at #9, is now (improbably) the third-biggest film ever of Leonardo DiCaprio’s career. That’s as far as it goes, though — no way it’s going to reach Titanic and Inception.
Bringing up the rear was the Coens’ all-star comedy Hail, Caesar! This might seem like a disappointing cumulative, and perhaps to some extent it is — but it’s also currently the seventh-highest grosser of the Coens’ career, so it’s not nothing.
| TW | LW | Title | Gross (est.) | Cumulative (est.) | Weeks in Release |
| 1 | 1 | Deadpool | $55,000,000 | $235,394,887 | 2 |
| 2 | 2 | Kung Fu Panda 3 | $12,500,000 | $117,104,584 | 4 |
| 3 | N | Risen | $11,800,000 | $11,800,000 | 1 |
| 4 | N | The Witch | $8,685,270 | $8,685,270 | 1 |
| 5 | 3 | How to Be Single | $8,220,000 | $31,763,633 | 2 |
| 6 | N | Race | $7,275,000 | $7,275,000 | 1 |
| 7 | 4 | Zoolander 2 | $5,500,000 | $23,718,011 | 2 |
| 8 | 7 | Star Wars: The Force Awakens | $3,836,000 | $921,642,295 | 10 |
| 9 | 5 | The Revenant | $3,800,000 | $165,116,550 | 9 |
| 10 | 6 | Hail, Caesar! | $2,640,000 | $26,153,145 | 3 |
Source: Box Office Mojo
What did you see this weekend?
