After a strong first four months of the year, the 2014 domestic box office hit the skids during the key summer season.  A revival during the early weeks of the fall has given way to a string of disappointing weekends that have put to rest any notion that 2014 could ever match 2013’s total.  With no new wide openings this week, there was little chance of matching the same weekend last year when The Hunger Games Catching Fire and Disney’s Frozen were still going strong, but a 20% drop in the weekend box office total is not a good sign. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 did its part.  It topped the box office for the third consecutive week, and its third weekend total was down just 17% from Catching Fire’s franchise best 3rd weekend number ($26.2 million).
 
Mockingjay slipped 62%, but still added $21.6 million as it brought its domestic total to $257.7 million.  It will soon eclipse The LEGO Movie to become 2014’s top-grossing film, and still has a chance to catch Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy’s $332.2 million total, but it will be a tough slog as competition will really heat up in the next few weeks.  Overseas Mockingjay, Part 1 is doing even better, having already earned $302.8 million, and it could make up some of the $90-$100 million difference between Catching Fire’s domestic total ($424.7 million) and what Mockingjay is likely to earn here in North America.
 
Yes Mockingjay’s third weekend total is 17% behind that of Catching Fire, but that wasn’t the real problem this weekend.  What really sunk the box office was the lack of a hit like Disney’s Frozen, which overtook Catching Fire by posting a $31.6 million total in its second weekend (Dec. 6-8, 2013).  This year’s big Thanksgiving animated release, Dreamworks’ Penguins of Madagascar, dropped 56.4% in its second frame as it added just $11.1 million, bringing its 2-week domestic total to $49.6 million.  This is a very bad showing for a $132 million animated blockbuster—even the acknowledged bomb Rise of the Guardians did better in its second frame ($13 million) back in 2012.  Penguins is doing better overseas ($93.8 million), but the film’s performance certainly won’t help Dreamworks Animation’s prospects, and the lackluster showings of Penguins and this summer’s How to Train Your Dragon 2, both make Dreamworks’ strategy of exploiting its movie franchise properties with TV series look very bad.
 
The news was a little better for another film that opened last weekend, the R-rated comedy Horrible Bosses 2, which dropped just 44.4% as it earned $8.6 million and brought its domestic total to $36 million.  While there is no hope that this sequel will ever come close to the totals of the original Horrible Bosses film, at least the $42 million production will likely come close to earning its money back.
 
Meanwhile Disney’s Big Hero Six dropped just 56.8% and finished in fourth place in its fifth weekend in theaters, adding $8.1 million and bringing its domestic total to $177. 5 million.  A $200 million domestic total remains a possibility, and, since the film is doing very well overseas (in limited release so far) as well, it appears that, if present trends continue, a new franchise has been born.
 

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): December 5-7, 2014

 

Film

Weekend Gross

Screens

Avg./

Screen

Total Gross

Wk#

1

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay--Part 1

$21,600,000

4,054

$5,328

$257,700,000

3

2

Penguins of Madagascar

$11,100,000

3,775

$2,940

$49,591,000

2

3

Horrible Bosses 2

$8,600,000

3,400

$2,529

$36,075,000

2

4

Big Hero 6

$8,130,000

3,168

$2,566

$177,548,000

5

5

Interstellar

$8,000,000

3,028

$2,642

$158,657,000

5

6

Dumb and Dumber To

$4,169,000

3,088

$1,350

$78,081,000

4

7

The Theory of Everything

$2,668,000

826

$3,230

$13,613,000

5

8

Gone Girl

$1,500,000

1,205

$1,245

$162,861,000

10

9

The Pyramid

$1,350,000

589

$2,292

$1,350,000

1

10

Birdman

$1,150,000

738

$1,558

$18,919,000

8


Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar has also established itself as one of 2014’s top releases.  The original science fiction epic has earned $158.7 million in five weekends, but that pales before the $434.4 million that film has earned overseas.
 
While there were now new wide releases Fox did open the "found footage" horror film The Pyramid in 589 theaters, where it earned a modest $1.3 million (a $2,292 per-venue average).  Fox might have tried a wider release and a more assertive marketing campaign for the film, which follows a team of archeologists, who discover a massive Pyramid in the Egyptian desert.  Some horror mavens are saying good things about The Pyramid, too bad that for most contemporary horror fans, who have been burned numerous times, “found footage” has become code for "certified crap."
 
Why the folks at Fox Searchlight didn’t take this weekend as an opportunity to launch the Oscar hopeful Wild starring Reese Witherspoon as a woman who finds herself by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in more than 21 theaters remains an unanswered question.  Bolstered by a strong publicity campaign the film averaged $30,000 per theater, and will expand in coming weeks, during which it will face much more competition.  There is no reason that folks won’t go to the movies on the weekend after Thanksgiving, if the studios provide films that they want to see.
 
Be sure to check back here next week, when we will have some new films to analyze including Ridley Scott’s big budget Bible film Exodus and Chris Rock’s comedy Top Five, both of which will open wide.
 
--Tom Flinn