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
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