Weekend Wrap-Up: Happy New Year!

December 31, 2012

The last news story of the year is the weekend wrap-up, but since many studios are still closed for the holidays, we are still dealing with estimates. It appears that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey won a close race for top spot just ahead of Django Unchained. Additionally, every film in the top five came within a rounding error of predictions, or was better than expected, and the overall box office was massive compared to last year. We won't have final numbers for the last two weekends till Wednesday or Thursday, so there will be a lot of catching up to do, but it is hard to complain about the results we've seen.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey crossed $200 million on Friday, 15 days into its run, while over the weekend it added $31.96 million to its running tally, which now sits at $221.74 million. I don't think it will reach $300 million, but it should come close. Perhaps it will come close enough that the studio will give it a boost at the end. Or maybe the movie will earn some technical Oscars and that will be enough to get to that milestone.

Django Unchained rode its reviews to second place with $30.12 million over the weekend for a total of $63.44 million since Tuesday. At this pace, it will reach $100 million with ease, maybe as soon as this time next week, while it if can pick up a number of major Awards Season wins, it should become Quentin Tarantino's biggest hit ever. Even without major wins, getting to $125 million domestically shouldn't be too hard, but I'm not sure how well a film about slavery in America will perform at the international box office.

Les Miserables earned third place with $27.28 million over the weekend for a total of $66.72 million since Tuesday. It went from first on the daily chart opening day to third over the weekend, which shows its legs will likely not be as strong as the other Christmas Day releases. It has earned great reviews and it is a favorite to pick up several Oscar nominations, and at least two wins (Anne Hathaway for Best Supporting Actress and at the very least one technical award). However, it is not as good as many were hoping it would be. That said, $125 million to $150 million is the likely final box office, and since it only cost $61 million to make, that's more than enough to ensure a profit before the home market.

Likewise, Parental Guidance has already earned more at the box office than it cost to make with an early total of $29.34 million, including $14.55 million over the weekend. Its reviews are bad, there's no getting around that, but it is a safe family film and that should help its legs going forward. Assuming it can reach $50 million during its run, it will earn a profit sometime on the home market, regardless of how well it does internationally.

As expected, Jack Reacher landed fifth place with an estimated $14.01 million over the weekend for a total of $44.66 million after two. It is on pace to match original expectations, more or less.

There likely won't be any columns tomorrow, outside of the Monthly Preview and perhaps a late review, but once the final numbers for the last two weeks show up, there will be a rush of updates for the rest of the week. We will deal with the sophomore class and the per theater chart numbers then.


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Filed under: Weekend Estimates, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Parental Guidance, Jack Reacher, Anne Hathaway, Quentin Tarantino