Weekend Wrap-Up: Rogue One Wins Weekend, Doesn’t Quite win the Year with $65.62 million

January 4, 2017

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

The final weekend of the year wasn’t as potent as we had predicted, but there were still a number of reasons to celebrate. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story won the weekend and is on its way to becoming the biggest hit of the year. Sing was relatively close behind and will get to $200 million this upcoming weekend. Overall, the box office rose by 2.9% from last weekend hitting $186 million. This is 15% lower than the same weekend last year, which again was actually the first weekend of 2016. We need to switch to the Strowbrinian Calendar. I’m not kidding about this. As for the year-over-year comparison, that’s a little confusing. If you just look at the calender years, then 2016 broke the record earning $11.4 billion. However, the movie year actually begins the first Monday of the year and ends the final Sunday before the first Monday of the next year. Going by this definition of the year, 2016 actually just failed to overtake 2015, because we lost a few days of The Force Awakens and only got one extra day of Rogue One.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story earned first place with $49.61 million / $65.52 million for a total of $440.90 million after 18 days of release. This already puts it in second place for 2016, behind only Finding Dory. The film should remain in theaters long enough to get past $500 million, while it is on pace to crack $1 billion worldwide before too long.

Sing grew by 22% over the three day weekend earning $42.90 million, while it earned $57.29 million including Monday for a two-week total of $180.89 million. The film will get to $200 million shortly, becoming the 13th film released in 2016 to do so. The end of the holidays will hurt its box office performance, but the lack of any direct competition should be an asset.

Now that the holidays are over, we finally got daily numbers for Passengers and it is doing okayish. This past weekend, the movie pulled in $16.16 / $21.07 million for a two-week total of $66.18 million. This is a better hold that expected; it is a better hold than its reviews or its B- CinemaScore. Its probably not enough to get it to $100 million domestically, but it could come close enough to save face at Sony. On a more immediate note, the film’s run so far was enough to push Jennifer Lawrence ahead of Kevin Hart on the 2016 highest grossing stars chart. This is the fourth year in a row she has come out on top, but 2017 might end her reign. It will certainly be one of the stories worth following.

Moana climbed into fourth place with $10.99 million / $15.20 million over the weekend for a total of $214.26 million. It’s going to plummet at the box office now that the holidays are over, but it has already made enough worldwide to pay for its entire production budget and at least half of its advertising budget.

Why Him? managed fifth place with $10.05 million / $13.12 million for a two-week total of $37.68 million. The film cost $38 million, so it has nearly matched that domestically. Sadly, comedies like this rarely translate well to international markets, so it will likely have to wait till the home market to break even.

Fences was very, very close behind with $10.04 million / $13.11 million over the weekend for a total of $32.81 million. It didn’t grow as much as it should have considering its reviews and its early Awards Season success. That said, it is still on pace to earn $50 million domestically, perhaps $60 million to $70 million, if it turns some if its nominations into awards.

La La Land returned to seventh place with $9.55 million / $12.58 million over the weekend for a total of $37.29 million. The film has yet to expand even semi-wide, but since its theater average is still over $10,000, it will continue to expand.

Finally we get to Assassin’s Creed, which was the biggest bomb of the month. The film fell from fifth to eighth place with $8.68 million / $11.37 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $42.41 million. The film cost $125 million to make and it isn’t going to make half of that domestically. It is doing better internationally, but not by enough to break even.

- Weekend Box Office Chart

Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Passengers, Assassin’s Creed, Moana, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Sing, La La Land, Why Him?, Fences, Kevin Hart, Jennifer Lawrence