Katniss Sets Box Office Ablaze
Sunday, November 24, 2013 at 6:06PM Amir here with the weekend's box office report. To the surprise of no one, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire came out on top, edging out not just this week's meagre competition, but also the original Hunger Games. Back then, it was surprising that the YA adaptation could open to more than $150m, but with the book series now even more universally recognized and a leading lady who is threatening to become Hollywood's biggest star, these numbers aren't shocking. Still, to put things in perspective, Catching Fire now has one of the top five best opening weekends of all time, neck and neck with The Dark Knight Rises for the best 2D-only opening.
Batman franchise level openings for Hunger Games
Staggering numbers. The question at this point is whether the film has enough fuel in its tank to beat Iron Man 3 to the year's top spot.
BOX OFFICE
01 THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE $161.1 *new*
02 THOR: THE DARK WORLD $14.1 (cum. $167.8) Review
03 THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY $12.5 (cum. $50.3) Discussion
04 DELIVERY MAN $8.2 *new*
05 FREE BIRDS $5.3 (cum. $48.5)
06 LAST VEGAS $4.4 (cum. $53.9)
07 JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA $3.4 (cum. $95.4)
08 GRAVITY $3.3 (cum. $245.5) Many Previous Posts
09 12 YEARS A SLAVE $2.8 (cum. $29.3) Slavery in Cinema & Previous Discussions
10 DALLAS BUYERS CLUB $2.7 (cum. $6.4) Podcast & Review
The weekend's other debut is the critically dismissed Vince Vaughn joint, Delivery Man, about a man whose countless sperm donations in youth have led to countless children. I haven't seen it but I found Starbuck, the original Quebecois film this is based on, genuinely funny and engaging a couple of years ago at TIFF, where it was the runner up for the People's Choice Award.
Beyond that, the main talking points are the buzzy Oscar contenders, all present in the top twenty at this point, unless you count Philomena a top contender. Dallas Buyers Club entered the top ten, 12 Years a Slave continues to hold well - am I the only one surprised by this film's success? Nebraska is also doing well (though Alexander Payne's approval ratings with critics continues to baffle me). But I think the real story is that All Is Lost has now reached almost $5 million, pleasantly strong for a film with virtually no marketing hooks. I wasn't a big fan of the film, but I can't begrudge J.C. Chandor his success. He's an exciting talent.
Aside from Nebraska, I caught up with Terms and Conditions May Apply, which is on Oscar's documentary longlist and is actually really captivating, rewatched the superb Brazilian Oscar submission Neighboring Sounds, and caught up with an Iranian film called When Everybody Was Asleep, which is quite possibly the message-iest of all message-y movies. What did you all see?
Reader Comments (32)
yes at "o som ao redor" / "the neighboring sounds"! can't you post about it? (I don't know if nathaniel has seen it) or have you written something elsewhere?
Marcelo- I have a post planned about it in the next couple of weeks, with regards to its submission for the Oscars.
marcelo - I keep answering your comment and it doesn't get posted for some reason. Anyway, I do have a write-up planned in the couple of weeks :)
on the topic of the foreign film category, did you see that now the whole academy can vote on the winner? before only those who had seen all five nominees were able to vote. good or bad change, in your opinion? (or it changes nothing?)
TCM Double-Bill of The Sugarland Express and Who's That Knocking At My Door?. The latter is a Scorsese debut that has great moments and introspection but boy, did he really like a music montage even back then. To think he was pulling back from that in his other movies this whole time.
The Sugarland Express was pretty awesome. A bit of Bonnie & Clyde, Duel, and Two-Lane Blacktop. Understanding that this was more in the Duel section of Spielberg's career seems crucial. It stands out as one of the more dramatic turns in his filmography, much like Hawn's dramatic turn as the tragic anti-heroine but it contains what was so great about 70s cinema. Shame it got shunned, it actually was the one instance where Spielberg was a festival circuit director and rightfully won for script (Cannes in 74 was stiff competition that year, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, The Last Detail, Arabian Nights, and The Conversation were among the most honored films that festival).
Also watched Letter Never Sent and The Unspeakable Act. The former, is a film I would just love to know how it was made. Unfortunately the Criterion disc lacks ideal supplementals to take off on such a discussion.
I'd gladly add 11 of my own dollars to All Is Lost's 5-million... if it would just hurry up and open somewhere I can see it! Does it not plan on going wide?
Saw "All Is Lost" .. pretty static movie... not my taste... done well ... more I thought about it later in the day, better I liked it... Redford did a very good job as a reacting actor... I would have liked it to end just the opposite ... won't say more as many may not have seen it as yet...
I saw Catching Fire and may be one of the few people who liked the first one better.
Saw CATCHING FIRE on Friday then had a DOCTOR WHO Day on Saturday.
I did revisit the original "Hunger Games" immediately before seeing "Catching Fire", which helped me mellow my zealous rage against the flawed, but admirable first film. The 2nd film certainly surpasses it on a level of emotional investment and visual rewards, even if its worldly stakes are stunted once they enter the arena. I still found it quite lovely overall, at once exciting me for the sequel(s), though still making me wish the films were made outside the marginalized expectations of the studio system.
Outside the "Hunger Games", I revisited "Call Me Kuchu" for a paper I'm writing in my American documentary class. Was gradually enraged by the baseless hatred of its antagonists, grew incredibly close to the people whose rights were/are being degraded, and was completely in tears for the last half hour. It may fall under the category of "advocacy cinema", but there's extraordinary care in how it conveys its tightly knit LGBT community. The scene between David's mother & Naome towards the end is a crucial example of this, for me.
What are you basing your success measure for All is Lost on? Everything I've read indicates it is underperforming particulary in comparison to other Oct releases.
When is the podcast going to be up? I believe Nick mentioned that it was recorded today.
I enjoyed Catching Fire, and thought it was better than the first one for the reasons Duncan stated above; the visuals and emotions were much stronger. I was bummed Katee Sackhoff wasn't cast as Johanna, but I was really impressed with Jenna Malone, she was fantastic. I am excited to see Blue Jasmine tonight. I have a $3 theater by my house so I am three months behind on many movies ( saw The Butler last weekend), but they are cheap tickets in a cool retro theater that uses real butter on their popcorn so it is hard to beat.
I went with the crowd and saw Catching Fire.
murtada - On the fact that I believe it has no marketing hooks. I'm not aware what the studio expectation for the film was, but I'd be surprised to find that they think a film with an unknown director (to the general public) with a "star" who hasn't really led a film in years, about a old man entirely alone on the sea for 90 minutes has underperformed at $5m. Which October releases are we comparing it to?
marcelo - I thought that rule took effect last year?
Amir - 12 years (opening on same day) and DBC ( opening 2 weeks later) - did so much better
murtada -- but come on ALL IS LOST is a virtually silent film with one character. That's what we call an art film. The other ones have multiple marketing hooks and (current) stars. I think it's a grossly unfair to expect it to do as well as 12 years or DBC. Plus it cost only $9 million to make so it'll eventually break even ... espeically if it scores oscar nods.
murtada - Yes, but incomparable potential/pedigree.
12 Years a Slave is the most talked about film of the year, won Toronto, comes with huge buzz and several recognizable stars. DBC has Matthew McConaughey on top form and the trailers embellished all the exciting aspects of the story.
All Is Lost has no advertising potential. The only thing that can draw audiences is the Oscar talk regarding Redford's performance and 5m seems a reasonable return.
I never know how to interpret box office nowadays with all the publicist doublethink that makes the news with the numbers. What is a hit now? Just making back your money?
Rewatched last year's Swiss submission today, Sister, which was even better than I remembered. Nathaniel, have you seen that yet? Especially with your blossoming Lea Seydoux love, it should be a must. It is KILLER and she's awesome in it.
amir - the deadline article I read said this past year it wasn't like that (they mentioned that this rule would benefit more high-profile movies, but last year's "amour" probably would still be the winner under this new rule as it was clearly very popular, getting nominated in other top categories). but maybe they're wrong, the foreign film category always gets changed, it's hard to keep up.
I saw Catching Fire and was fairly underwhelmed. I thought most of the acting was strong (was pleasantly surprised by Malone and after a while Claflin), but I remembered the many reasons why the first book was so much better while watching it and realizing how redundant the first two books are. And also, Katniss started to grate on me with how impetuous she constantly was without much regard for those around her.
Also, am I the only person who thought the overall visual of the film was horribly dark? Maybe I should have seen it on a bigger screen or the projectionist in my theater needed to change a lens or something, but the film was way too dark visually-I needed some more light.
Re: All is Lost, it's definitely an art film, but they could certainly emphasize the more spectacle-y moments of the film (the storm, for example) and sell it as a more terrestrial variant on Gravity, which it is. Not necessarily going to do 12 Years business regardless, but there is definitely some kind of marketing hook in there somewhere. I could imagine Harvey Weinstein bleeding a Killing Them Softly-esque $15m out of it under the right circumstances. That said, I don't think anyone should be unhappy with $5m. I'm sure the producers are well in the black already after foreign pre-sales.
As for me, I saw Dallas Buyers Club and fucking HATED IT. Such bland, perspective free Oscar drooling. Fine performances, but stranded in a movie that has no sense of real context. Dumbed down BS. Plus, the period detail was shit - all the TVs were straight out of the mid-90s AT THE EARLIEST.
I also saw Strange Days on Netflix. What an odd movie that is.
As a Business Analyst myself, I found this under-perform / over-perform angle very interesting. It's always about the movie not the analyst or the expectation, isn't it? By all means, analysts or the so-called "Hollywood insiders" are also human and we do overlook something once in a while so we might not be expecting / predicting the most correct figure and we might not even consider every little angle that might contribute / affect the gross of a movie. But every time a movie earns more than the analysts predicted the movie is called out-perform, surprise hit, more people watch it than it should be..., and every time a movie earns even only a little bit lesser than what they predicted it's branded as under-perform, disappointment, this movie star is not as profitable as they think... It's never "Oh, I predicted wrongly, I underestimated the movie" or simply "this movie opens at $20 mil, that's it, end of story".
OK, I don't quite get what I'm trying to say as well, not even here to argue anything. That's just what comes to my mind immediately after reading these over-perform / under-perform analysis.
I watched Catching Fire in cinema, and The Kings of Summer and The World's End at home. Also, the whole 5-hour of The Golden Horse award. Maybe that's why I'm so tired now in the office LOL.
I saw Catching Fire and it was solid, better than the first, but not an amazing movie by any means. It is, however, superior to the book.
Possible outline for 12 Years a Slave's box office pattern: http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=schindlerslist.htm. We can only hope it will have a similar run.
PJ, it's good to know you have this perspective and that you're not THE PJ who has been making repeated comments on other blogs about various indie films' Oscar chances tanking due to their lack of box office. This particular poster was on a tear over All Is Lost, Nebraska (in fact, he or she posted a comment on another blog about its supposedly mediocre box office damaging its awards chances just this morning), and even Dallas Buyers Club and Fruitvale Station.
I hope Oscar voters don't take look too much at a film's box office when they're casting their votes. It would be a huge disappointment to have an Oscar BP lineup consisting of 12 Years and 9 studio films.
Suzanne: No, I do not follow a lot of blogs, let alone leaving a comment. This blog is the few only blogs I follow extensively, and I always try to be neutral when I leave a comment. But I should have known PJ is such common initial, maybe I'll use my full name in the future :)
Saw Nebraska. Simply sublime.
Saw Blue is the Warmest Color. Wow, Exarchopoulos is a major, major talent. So unaffected (all that open-mouthed eating!) and simple but man you knew everything she was going through even with minimal dialogue. And she can on cry on cue better than anyone (slight overstatement, but you get my drift). Seydoux was great, too, but I can't stop thinking about Exarchopoulos. I'm not sure what I thought of the movie as a whole. It vacillated from highs of fascinating and moving to moments of meh, but maybe that's inevitable with a 3-hour slice of life drama?
It was also fun spotting all the blues and use of color in general.
I watched a triple feature of Foreign language films. I watched Amarcord which was amusing but not quite Fellini's best. The Battle of Algiers which I had seen a while ago but decided to revisit it and it held up well. So many tense scenes in that film. I finished it off by watching Autumn
Sonata which i loved and i cant believe Ingrid Bergman didnt win the Oscar that year. no offense to Jane
Fonda and her great work in Coming Home but Bergman was just superb in the film as she always was. Ingmar Bergman was such a genius and his films are so well crafted. next to Hitchcock he is pretty much the one director who i obsess over.
Eli, probably the main reason Ingrid didn't win is she had already won three, and the Academy gets stingy about stuff like that. I still haven't seen Autumn Sonata and am dying to. I love Jane Fonda, but having not seen Ingrid in AS, I would have given the Oscar to Jill Clayburgh for An Unmarried Woman.
Coming Home just is a little off-putting when you know how much was changed from Nancy Dowd's script. Also the fact as much as I love Bruce Dern (should've been nominated that year for The Driver instead) and Jane Fonda separately, as a couple, it was never believable. Also finding out how much Fonda and Julie Christie tagged team on a whispering campaign against competitor The Deer Hunter was not a good look for either, especially Jane. I didn't even think The Deer Hunter was that great (like Pauline Kael, I just found the fact they go back to be a fatal move by the film that was already getting too literal) but the bad-mouthing of it that year when you read about it was pretty vicious. I'd give the Oscar to Ingrid too. Were they avoiding giving her a third or just wanted to have a Vietnam War themed ceremony?
Frankly, 78 was not a bad year, though not a great year, but I found what was nominated to represent the best shows its strength compared to other Oscar years of that decade. Days of Heaven seemed locked out of major category while something so honest and lovely like Claudia Weill's Girlfriends should've at least gotten a screenplay nod. That's really my only chief complaint.