WINNER OF THE WEEK: Christian Bale. The Artist Formerly Known as Batman has two top-15 movies this week.Out of the Furnaceis holding up well at Number Six with an estimated $2.3 million (for a 10-day total of $9.5 million), despite lackluster reviews and heavy competition for action audiences. Meanwhile, his Oscar-hopeful movieAmerican Hustleopened at Number 15 with a per-screen average of $115,000 (thats an estimated $690,000 on six screens), the highest per-screen average of any movie this week. (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaugearned $18,877 per screen, about one-sixth as much asAmerican Hustle.)
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LOSERS OF THE WEEK: The dragon and the drag queen. How can the secondHobbitbe called a loser when it opened at Number One with an estimated $73.7 million, the fourth-highest December opening ever? Because expectations for Baggins-vs.-dragon tale were so much higher. After all, the firstHobbitopened a year ago with $84.6 million. Some pundits expected this second installment to open just as big. But 2012sThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journeysquandered a lot of the good will generated by Peter Jacksons previous Tolkien trilogy, and even thoughThe Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaughas earned stronger reviews, the fair-weather fans among Middle-earthers have been slow to return. And we had anything but fair weather this weekend, thanks to crushing Winter Storm Electra.
As forTyler Perrys A Madea Christmas, that one should also have opened much higher than an estimated $16.0 million and third place; expectations were in the $25 to $30 million range, given the track record of Perrys movies where he plays the gun-toting grandma. A Christmas movie should have been a cant-miss among Perrys spiritually-minded, largely female, older African-American audience. But there was a lot of competition for that crowd this season (including the still strongThe Best Man Holiday, as well asBlack Nativity). Add to that the weather conditions, including maybe some Smaug. Its possible that theres more overlap than youd imagine between the Tolkien and Tyler Perry audiences, both of which are predominantly made up of people over 25.
Smaug also took a big bite out of the other current fantasy/action spectacles. In fourth place,The Hunger Games: Catching Firefell 50 percent from last weekend to an estimated $13.2 million, bringing its four-week total to $357.0 million. At Number Five,Thor: The Dark Worlddropped 44 percent to an estimated $2.7 million, for a six-week total just shy of $200 million. The only top-five movie that held up well was DisneysFrozen, down just 30 percent, for an estimated $22.2 million take, a second-place finish, and a four-week total of $164.4 million.
HANKS AND BANKS:American Hustlewasnt the only movie to do well in a limited-release debut this weekend. Disneys making-of-Mary-PoppinsdramaSaving Mr. Banksopened on 15 screens and earned an impressive $28,067 per venue, for an estimated total of $421,000. Fittingly, the Tom Hanks-Emma Thompson movie came in on the chart just one spot ahead of HanksCaptain Phillips, still hanging in there (and still generating Oscar buzz) after 10 weeks with an estimated $285,000 on 323 screens, for a total to date of $104.0 million. Aside from the eligible animated movies, that makes the modern-day pirate thriller one of the top-earning movies of all this seasons Oscar hopefuls.