LOS ANGELES -- As moviegoers along the East Coast began recovering from snowstorms, floods and other inclement weather, cineplexes across the influential region were rather empty last weekend. This left new releases, including Columbia Pictures' The 5th Wave, Lionsgate's Dirty Grandpa and STX Entertainment's The Boy, all well behind box-office holdovers.
Placing first was The Revenant, released by 20th Century Fox and co-financed by New Regency, with about $16 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters, falling well below expectations. In the fifth week since its limited Christmas Day release, the Leonardo DiCaprio-fronted Western epic has grossed a bit more than $119 million. It cost $135 million to make.
The 19th-century tale of revenge in the unforgiving wilderness sits atop the box office after 12 Oscar nominations, including best picture and lead actor (DiCaprio).
Disney's Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens took second place, adding an additional $14 million to its record-breaking run. The latest installment of the space saga has grossed $1.9 billion globally, making it the No. 3 movie of all time. Disney announced last week that its follow-up, Episode VIII, is pushed back from the original release date of May 26, 2017, to Dec. 15, 2017.
Falling to third place was last week's box-office winner, Universal's Ride Along 2. Though expected to gross around $20 million for the weekend, the Kevin Hart and Ice Cube-starring buddy cop sequel took in only about $12.5 million.
The sequel to its 2014 predecessor was probably the most affected by the East Coast weather conditions. Considering its $41 million debut over the long Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, the film demonstrated audience interest. But many of the locations where the film performed best were affected by the winter storm, and more than half of the sequel's audience last weekend were under 25, a demographic typically less dedicated than, for example, The Revenant's audience.
Of the new releases, Dirty Grandpa fared best with a fourth-place finish. The R-rated comedy met expectations with about $11.1 million in ticket sales. Starring Robert De Niro as Zac Efron's foul-mouthed, raunchy grandfather, the film follows the duo as they take a wild spring break trip to Daytona Beach, Fla., before Efron's character marries his fiancee.
Critics and audiences were split on the film. It received a B grade from audience polling firm CinemaScore but only an 8 percent positive rating on critic site Rotten Tomatoes.
Rounding out the top five was The Boy, STX's horror offering. With a production budget of only $10 million, the film brought in about $11 million in its debut. The PG-13 supernatural thriller follows an American nanny hired by an English family to care for a life-size doll that they treat like a living child.
STX, based in Burbank, Calif., co-financed the production with Lakeshore Entertainment. It tracked best with women (62 percent), those younger than 25 (75 percent) and with Hispanics, who constituted 41 percent of the audience.
According to CinemaScore, audiences gave the film a B-minus. Rotten Tomatoes critics didn't like it, giving the picture only a 25 percent positive rating.
The 5th Wave, from Columbia and LStar Capital, landed last of the new releases, in sixth place. Starring Chloe Grace Moretz, it grossed about $10.3 million, falling below the $11 million to $13 million expectations for its domestic debut. Granted, the studio did project a more conservative $8 million for the young-adult novel adaptation.
In the film, Moretz plays a teen trying to save her younger brother amid a series of devastating alien attacks. It cost $38 million. Based on a book by Rick Yancey, the film has performed well with international audiences, particularly in Latin America and Southeast Asia.
On the limited-release front, the Chinese fantasy movie Monster Hunt opened over the weekend to a measly $21,000 on roughly 40 screens. But the film is a blockbuster in its home country. Last year it became the highest-grossing movie ever in China with $381 million.
This week, the box-office battle is expected to even back out with improved weather conditions in the East and a host of new releases bound to pull out audiences. Those include Fox's Kung Fu Panda 3, Open Road's Fifty Shades of Grey spoof Fifty Shades of Black and Buena Vista's thriller The Finest Hours.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Rentrak:
The Revenant, 20th Century Fox, $16,009,718, 3,711 locations, $4,314 average, $119,202,240, five weeks.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, Disney, $14,078,648, 3,365 locations, $4,184 average, $879,110,994, six weeks.
Ride Along 2, Universal, $12,456,050, 3,192 locations, $3,902 average, $58,606,090, two weeks.
Dirty Grandpa, Lionsgate, $11,111,875, 2,912 locations, $3,816 average, $11,111,875, one week.
The Boy, STX Entertainment, $10,778,392, 2,671 locations, $4,035 average, $10,778,392, one week.
The 5th Wave, Columbia, $10,326,356, 2,908 locations, $3,551 average, $10,326,356, one week.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Paramount, $9,030,400, 2,917 locations, $3,096 average, $32,763,829, two weeks.
Daddy's Home, Paramount, $4,940,848, 2,789 locations, $1,772 average, $138,451,113, five weeks.
Norm of the North, Lionsgate, $3,828,087, 2,411 locations, $1,588 average, $14,024,290, two weeks.
The Big Short, Paramount, $3,176,529, 1,351 locations, $2,351 average, $56,390,370, seven weeks.
Sisters, Universal, $1,770,620, 1,602 locations, $1,105 average, $84,807,610, six weeks.
Brooklyn, Fox Searchlight, $1,720,675, 962 locations, $1,789 average, $27,584,996, 12 weeks.
The Forest, Focus Features, $1,675,558, 2,010 locations, $834 average, $24,982,975, three weeks.
The Hateful Eight, The Weinstein Company, $1,365,069, 1,277 locations, $1,069 average, $50,975,744, five weeks.
Room, A24 Films, $1,335,563, 862 locations, $1,549 average, $7,864,357, 15 weeks.
Spotlight, Open Road, $1,273,626, 1,030 locations, $1,237 average, $32,902,971, 12 weeks.
Joy, 20th Century Fox, $1,136,527, 966 locations, $1,177 average, $54,196,165, five weeks.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, 20th Century Fox, $1,105,310, 1,204 locations, $918 average, $82,521,026, six weeks.
Airlift, B4U US, $878,699, 122 locations, $7,202 average, $878,699, one week.
Ip Man 3, Well Go USA, Inc., $784,839, 103 locations, $7,620 average, $784,839, one week.
MovieStyle on 01/29/2016