On what will end up being one of the slowest weekends of the year, In the Heart of the Sea took first place on Friday, but will end up grossing far less than anticipated. The film took in just $3.8M on Friday, giving it a weekend of around $10.5M-$11M. Clearly, the anticipation for next weekends Star Wars: The Force Awakens took a huge hit on anything in its radius. This film was originally set to open in March of this year, but Warner Brothers decided to push it back, perhaps to make it an awards contendor. Unfortunately, releasing a would be event film in such a slow weekend lead to a very poor debut. Audiences weren’t exactly thrilled, giving it a decent B+ Cinemascore. That score doesn’t really matter though, as its going to be absolutely destroyed next weekend, and will likely be out of theaters by Christmas to make room for the abundance of new releases.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 was in second place, grossing $3.2M on its fourth Friday. That means it will be in a close race for In the Heart of the Sea for first, though given that both films are going to gross less than $12M, that isn’t exactly a massive accomplishment.

After a surprising opening last weekend, Krampus was down 58% on Friday. That sounds steep, but is actually very good for a horror film, which typically fall over 65% on Friday, or in more extreme cases such as the Insidious sequels, over 75%. Given that it actually saw a small jump on Saturday last weekend, it will likely go up very high today and should gross around $8M for the weekend.

In limited release, The Big Short surpassed all expectations with a phenomenal $221K from just 8 theaters. While it seemed like something that may do better with general audiences, the arthouse crowd turned up en masse to give it one of the best per-theater averages of the year. For the weekend, it should be at around $80K per theater. That puts it ahead of such films as Sicario, Spotlight and Carol, behind only October’s Steve Jobs, which blew away all expectations with a fantastic $130K PTA.

Creed had a solid drop on Friday, down just 34% to $2.9M, giving it a weekend of around $7-$8M. If it doesn’t get crushed next weekend, it still has a decent shot at $100M domestic.

Macbeth saw a limited expansion into 108 theaters, but did even worse than last weekend. It flopped with just $716 from each of those theaters, giving it a laughably bad $77K on Friday. This is the final nail in the coffin for the film, which will likely fizzle out from here and be lucky to get any recognition in the home video market. That’s the second strike out for Fassbender, after the disappointing performance of this and Steve Jobs. He seems to be doing several smaller art films for every major blockbuster, as he is set to reprise his role as Magneto in next years X-Men: Apocalypse. Still, this is a very disappointing result for afilm that seemed as though it had potential to do well in this market.

Legend expanded into 107 theaters, but failed to gain any traction. The film grossed just $93K for a weak per theater average of $869. There’s a reason why none of these films are making any money, and it largely has to do with the massive and universally unprecedented anticipation behind next weekends Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Of course, it could just be a lack of interest, but it certainly isn’t helping.

More from Bombs and Blockbusters

Weekend Report: “Krampus” Exceeds Expectations with Strong Second Place Debut

https://bombsandblockbusters.wordpress.com/2015/12/06/weekend-report-krampus-exceeds-expectations-with-strong-second-place-debut/

Krampus – Movie Review

https://bombsandblockbusters.wordpress.com/2015/12/06/krampus-movie-review/