Kung Fu Panda 3 took first place on the final weekend of January, but wasn’t quite as strong as originally expected. Meanwhile, The Finest Hours sailed off course, while Fifty Shades of Black and Jane Got a Gun flopped.

Kung Fu Panda 3 took in a so-so $41M on its opening weekend. That’s lower than Kung Fu Panda 2‘s $47M, though that film opened over a Memorial Day weekend, so it isn’t an apples to apples comparison. Word of mouth will help, with an A Cinemascore and 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. If it can hold similarly to the other two Kung Fu Panda films, it should wind up with around $145M.

In second place, The Revenant dipped 23% to $12.4M, bringing its new domestic total to $138M, and a worldwide total of $247M. These are both great numbers for the massive budget frontier epic, which is likely just a week or two away from doubling its $135M production cost. The film continues to exceed expectations, and will likely wind up with around $170M domestic when all is said and done.

In third place, Star Wars: The Force Awakens also fell 23% to $10.7M, bringing its domestic total to $895.4M. By the end of the week, it should be over $900M, and could wind up with another $25M-$30M by the end of its run.

In fourth place, The Finest Hours disappointed with a soft $10.3M. Carrying a price tag estimated at $70M-$80M, and with just $1.6M from its foreign opening weekend, this is pretty disappointing. That opening is about half of The Guardian (the last noteworthy Coast Guard thriller to get a wide release) and well below most other disaster-IMAX event films. It seemed to have a very old-Hollywood vibe to it, which may have attracted an older audience, but prevented it from really breaking out to a mainstream market. It also had the disadvantage of many of its IMAX and 3D screens going to Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Kung Fu Panda 3 respectively, and many Premium Large Format theaters are still showing The Revenant. Combine all of this with the mediocre 59% on Rotten Tomatoes, and this one didn’t have much of a chance.

In 6th, The Boy had a surprisingly strong drop, dipping just 27% in its second weekend. That’s a phenomenal hold for a supernatural horror film, even with the storm affecting its performance last weekend. It was estimated that the storm took out around 15% of potential grosses last weekend, meaning if that were true, the film would still only have fallen in the 40% range, a great hold for a film of this nature. Many horror films (especially those marketed at a teen audience) fall over 55% in their second weekend, but for whatever reason this film bucked that trend. With $21M in the bank after two weeks, it seems safe to assume that this film could wind up with over $30M, which would be an excellent result.

In 7th, Dirty Grandpa fell 32% to $7.5M. Again, a fairly solid hold, if not as impressive. It’s hard to say how well this film is doing, as no official budget has been posted as of yet. Still, $22M in two weeks is a fine enough result.

In 8th, The 5th Wave fell 32% to $7M. With only $20M after two weeks, it remains one of the lowest grossing YA adaptations to date, ahead of only a few such as Beautiful Creatures and Vampire Academy. It seems as though this trend is winding down, with the only new releases in sight being ones for very popular books, such as the end to the Maze Runner and Divergent series. If it can make a little more overseas, it still might be able to barely double its $38M production budget, but calling it a win is out of the question.

In 9th place, Fifty Shades of Black flopped with just $6.1M from 2,075 theaters. The $5M parody attempted to capitalize on the popularity of many romantic films from the last few years, but seemed like something more suited to a Valentines Day release rather than late January. This debut is even lower than A Haunted House 2, which is a pretty damning comparison. It will be surprising if this tops $15M domestic, considering the 18% on Rotten Tomatoes and atrocious C Cinemascore.

All the way down in 17th, Jane Got a Gun was one for the record books. With a $25M production budget, it made just $803K from 1,210 theaters. It was never expected to be huge, but not even being able to top $1M from over 1200 theaters is pretty embarassing. That gave it a laughably bad per theater average of just $664. It was clear that the studio was just trying to bury this film, giving it barely any marketing and a smaller release. In fact, just a few days before it came out, it was supposed to be released in just 550 theaters, but decided to do nearly triple that for whatever reason. It’ll be surprising if this wound up with $1.5M before vanishing from theaters without a trace.

In 112 theaters, the 2016 Oscar Nominated Short Films got off to a solid start with $505K. Obviously a compilation of short films in succession isn’t something that would appeal to any sort of wide audience, so being able to get a release this big is at least noteworthy. That’s actually the highest result for any of these compilations (which started in 2012) and have generally released in around 100-120 theaters. It will likely expand to around 200 theaters by the end of its release (or, around when the awards themselves take place) and should be able to gross over $2M, which is a solid enough result.

As far as the Best Picture nominees in limited release, The Big Short topped $60M with $3M in its 6th weekend in wide release, Brooklyn fell just .3% despite losing 214 theaters, Room fell 9% to $1.2M from 795 theaters, and Spotlight fell 12% 715 theaters (down from over 1,000 last weekend)

More from Bombs and Blockbusters

Weekend Report: ‘Revenant’ Repeats Against Trio of Weak Newcomers

https://bombsandblockbusters.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/weekend-report-revenant-repeats-against-trio-of-weak-newcomers/

The 5th Wave – Movie Review

https://bombsandblockbusters.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/the-5th-wave-movie-review/