Weekend - 26th to 29th December 2013

This weekend, typically the biggest movie going weekend of the year, saw the release of 3 new films which entered the top  10 (5 including the 2 films in previews last weekend).

The Hobbit 2 as expected easily led the weekend with an impressive 14.38m over the weekend.  It managed the 2nd biggest Boxing Day take ever of 5.5m on it's opening day. (only the first hobbit film eclipsed that).  Overall however, the hobbit 2 posted the biggest ever Boxing Day weekend topping The Lord of the rings second film (the two towers).  It was also the biggest opening of 2013 just passing iron man 3's opening of 14.1m from back earlier in the year.  This is a good sign that the hobbit 2 could with it's strong word of mouth, go on to eclipse not only iron man 3 which is the current leader for 2013 but the first hobbit film also.

Second place was no slouch either, with disney's annual animated release freezing up 6m over the weekend (including 1.7m on Boxing Day) for a total of 7.5m including previews.  A few months ago i did not pick this as a big release but given its opening and excellent to stunning word of mouth seen already overseas, there is no reason this film couldn't go on to surpasse 30m and possibly threaten Despicable Me 2 for the biggest animated film released in 2013.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty managed an impressive 3.2m over it's opening weekend.  Quite a nice opening for the film which i just wasn't sure about.  10m seems an easy trott from here and if it finds some legs over the holidays, it could wind up above 15m.

Fourth was the impressive Anchorman 2, which held a reasonable 39% from last weekend in the face of all of the new product in the market.  AM2 managed a further 3.1m for an excellent running total of 10.1m.  Given it's trajectory to date there is now an outside shot of it reaching 20m, which is something i didn't even think possible (frankly i thought 10m was stretching the friendship and yet here we are :p)

Rounding out the top 5 was American Hustle in it's 3rd weekend, hustling up a further 1.6m for a 6.8m running total.

outside the top 5, The Railway Man managed the 2nd biggest australian opening of 2013 with 1.2m.  Catching Fire continued on it's path to a total above 40m with a another 1.1m over the weekend.  CF is now just shy of 36m and is now fast closing in Iron Man 3's final total of 39.2m.  As it stands it appears CF will wind just past the 40m mark.  But CF better watch out as the Hobbit is looking to burn them all.

I've only got the top 10 figures (rounded) this weekend as their are no official figures being released.  Final numbers will be released on the 2nd January for the weekly report.

Here is this weeks top 10. (Revised with Actuals & Screen Count)

TW	LW	Movie	Rating	Distributor	Weekend Gross	% Change	Screen Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Week #
1	N	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug	M	Warner Bros	$ 14,447,756	-	631	-	$22,897	$ 14,447,756	1
2	5	Frozen	PG	Disney	$ 6,052,278	478.4%	463	43	$13,072	$ 7,621,730	1
3	N	The Secret Life of Walter Mitty	M	Fox	$ 3,273,270	-	257	-	$12,736	$ 3,273,270	1
4	1	Anchorman 2	M	Paramount	$ 3,185,176	-39.0%	247	-131	$12,895	$ 10,156,900	2
5	2	American Hustle	M	Roadshow	$ 1,657,542	10.6%	264	-23	$6,279	$ 6,864,303	3
6	9	Philomena	M	Hopscotch	$ 1,580,636	746.2%	120	6	$13,172	$ 1,841,460	1
7	N	The Railway Man	M	Transmission	$ 1,203,170	-	118	-	$10,196	$ 1,203,170	1
8	4	The Hunger Games: Catching Fire	M	Roadshow	$ 1,081,535	-22.2%	244	-198	$4,433	$ 36,032,747	6
9	3	Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2	G	Sony	$ 859,422	-39.5%	242	-162	$3,551	$ 8,831,686	4
10	6	Dhoom 3	M	Mindblowing	$ 327,783	-52.9%	29	-1	$11,303	$ 1,480,552	2

Boxing Day 2013

As expected, the Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug easily topped the box office on the biggest day of the year (Boxing Day).  DOS pulled out 5.5m for the all time second biggest boxing day ever (behind the first hobbit) and the 4 biggest opening day ever (Only The Avengers, Harry Potter 8.2 were bigger).  It's not an easy task but the middle earth films now own the top 5 boxing day grosses ever (including the lord of the rings films).  Frozen also opened on boxing day managing a 1.6m opening day which if you include last weekends 1m in takings brings that films total to just shy of 3m to date. Walter Mitty pulled in over 800k for his opening day just outgrossing Anchorman 2 the holder from last weekend.

The Railway Man only managed to open down in 7th place with 250k or so.

Total gross for boxing day was in excess of 10.2m (second all time behind last years boxing day total of 10.8m)

Here is the top 10 for boxing day 2013:

(running total in brackets - ALL ESTIMATES)
1. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - 5.47m (5.5m)
2. Frozen - 1.62m (2.7m)
3. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - 855k (0.9m)
4. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues - 768k (8m)
5. American Hustle - 384k (5.5m)
6. Philonmena - 348k (0.6m)
7. The Railway Man - 257k (0.3m)
8. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - 238k (35m)
9. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 - 151k (7.8m)
10. Dhoom 3 - 116k (0.9m)

- jajang

Boxing Day Releases

Well its that time of the year again.  The biggest day on the cinema year is upon us.  Boxing Day is known as the biggest day of the year for cinemas (amongst many other things).  Over it's history (especially in the past 15 years), it has broken the Opening Day record for a film, 3 times (all 3 of the Lord of the Rings films in fact).  The largest opening (Return of the King) still remains in the top 5 all time opening days.

This year we have a wide array of choices from the big blockbuster releases in the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, Frozen and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty to an Australian drama in The Railway Man.  A couple of arthouse films are also released (Philomena and Short Term 12).  Of course we also have the carryover films currently in release, especially Anchorman 2 which opened impressively last weekend with over 5m, the smash hit The Hunger Games: Catching Fire which appears to be targeting a finish above 40m.

The top film of choice is quite obvious at this point and that belongs to the 2nd hobbit film.  The first managed 5.9m on boxing day last year before a 12m opening weekend.  That film went on to pass 42m but was considered to be step down from the lord of the rings trilogy which this trilogy is a prequel to.  Desolation of Smaug, however it appears is a different beast as it is better reviewed already though it's result in the USA are disappointing to date.  I believe it will be unaffected by this here however, as the marketing as been smack on.  DOS should see an opening day around the first film of about 6m flowing into a 15m or so weekend (there is an outside shot that the film opens above 16m but touching the last Potters film redicously large 18m opening isn't happening.

Frozen appears to be the clear second choice for cinema goers, given it's great word of mouth it's seeing the USA.  Between the 2 top films alone this could help this weekend to be one of the biggest ever.  look for a 3m to 4m opening day flowing into a 10m+ weekend.

Walter mitty might be the film that gets caught in the shuffle between the top 2 contenders.  It's debatable where it will end up but my gut is it will be a lot less than the top 2 films of the weekend.  Opening day of about 1m seems about right, but don't see this topping 4m for the weekend and could even dip below 3m if the perfect storm forms above this.

The Railway Man is a bit of an unknown at this point, but i think an opening day of around 500 to 700k is possible with an opening around 3m.

Anyway here is my prediction for the top 5:

Pos. Movie - Boxing Day / Weekend / Total
1. The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug - 6m / 15.5m / 15.5m
2. Frozen - 3.8m / 10.5m / 12m
3. Anchorman 2 - 1.2m / 4m / 13m
4. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - 1m / 3.8m / 3.8m
5. The Railway Man - 700k / 3m / 3m

Top 20 - 19th - 23rd December 2013

This week, saw the opening of Anchorman 2.  The original film opened back in 2004 to a meager 767k and went on to make around 2.3m.  (It should be noted that this was the 3rd biggest market behind the UK and the USA for the film).  Anchorman 2 has blown that film out of the water, easily topping the film in it's opening 2 days.  Anchorman 2 impressed and surprised me with an opening of 5.2m (5.6m including wednesday night previews) and is comparably well ahead of the slightly disappointing opening in the US of 26m (estimated ~ 40m 5 day).  This result can be marked down to a strong marketing compaign over the past few months here in Australia.  Unless you living under a rock you knew this film was coming one way or another.  This included clever tie ins to the Ashes series (currently underway) and the recently held national elections.  I original believed AM2 capable of a 10m finish, which is now a total this film will easily surpasse and now has a reasonable shot at reaching 20m (given the release timeframe).

Last weeks top spot holder, American Hustle, dipped by a reasonable 31% to 1.5m and a running total of 4.7m.  Cloudy 2 had another strong 15% hold for a 7.3m running total and 3rd place.  4th was the 5 week old Catching Fire, which managed a further 1.4m and an impressive 34.4m running total.  Rounding out the top 5 was the previews for Frozen, which while a strong showing I must say seems a little weak.  I wasn't even aware till right before this weekend that it was in preview, making me wonder whether there was awareness that disney had this in previews this weekend.  Although it opens on boxing day, it also has further previews on christmas day itself.

Lastly, of note, Dhoom 3 opened in 6th spot with a very, very impressive 695k on only 30 screens.  It had a mindblowing (no pun intended ;) ) 23k average.  What makes this even more impressive, was the fact it opened on Friday making the takings only a 3 day weekend.

Here is the top 20:

* Dhoom 3 opened on Friday, 20th December 2013.

TW	LW	Movie	Rating	Distributor	Weekend Gross	% Change	Screen Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Week #
1	N	Anchorman 2	M	Paramount	$ 5,223,598	-	378	-	$13,819	$ 5,581,502	1
2	1	American Hustle	M	Roadshow	$ 1,498,248	-31.3%	287	+2	$5,220	$ 4,694,507	2
3	3	Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2	G	Sony	$ 1,419,974	-15.2%	404	-61	$3,515	$ 7,288,526	3
4	2	The Hunger Games: Catching Fire	M	Roadshow	$ 1,389,441	-36.2%	442	-121	$3,144	$ 34,424,964	5
5	N	Frozen	PG	Disney	$ 1,046,467	-	420	-	$2,492	$ 1,416,520	PR
6	N	Dhoom 3 *	M	Mindblowing	$ 695,782	-	30	-	$23,193	$ 695,782	1
7	4	Delivery Man	M	Disney / DW	$ 338,807	-51.2%	218	-22	$1,554	$ 3,059,732	3
8	5	Ender's Game	M	Icon	$ 285,999	-47.4%	198	-10	$1,444	$ 2,342,294	3
9	N	Philomena	M	Hopscotch	$ 186,793	-	114	-	$1,639	$ 234,744	PR
10	7	Thor: The Dark World	M	Disney	$ 114,400	-51.5%	55	-125	$2,080	$ 22,954,335	8
11	N	Personal Tailor	PG	Chinalion	$ 108,632	-	10	-	$10,863	$ 108,632	1
12	6	Jackass presents: Bad Grandpa	MA15+	Paramount	$ 107,594	-64.7%	112	-65	$961	$ 9,588,307	6
13	10	Gravity	M	Warner Bros	$ 81,026	-31.5%	32	-34	$2,532	$ 20,815,474	12
14	8	One Chance	PG	Roadshow	$ 78,852	-57.0%	120	-114	$657	$ 2,102,076	4
15	14	The Gilded Cage	M	Palace	$ 74,538	-6.3%	20	+0	$3,727	$ 255,267	2
16	11	Captain Phillips	M	Sony	$ 52,234	-51.7%	39	-23	$1,339	$ 9,536,576	9
17	16	The Butler	M	Hopscotch	$ 46,131	-29.2%	36	-15	$1,281	$ 4,712,965	8
18	9	Carrie	MA15+	Sony	$ 44,132	-74.5%	45	-89	$981	$ 1,772,438	4
19	17	Enough Said	M	Fox Search	$ 42,408	-34.1%	46	-10	$922	$ 1,815,814	6
20	12	Battle of the year	PG	Sony	$ 39,467	-59.3%	40	-22	$987	$ 197,941	2

Welcome to Box Office Down Under.  Soon to be a personal blog and opinions on the Australia Box Office.  All opinions contained on here are my own (Jajang).  If you want to contact me, I can be contacted on the following forums.

I am one of the Forum Moderator's.

http://forums.boxoffice.com/