It was a battle of titans this weekend past as DiCaprio faced down and inevitably beat Jonas. No, this wasn’t another celeb meltdown with Leonardo DiCaprio engaging in a brawl with one of the Jonas brothers (although I would pay good money to see that) but rather that DiCaprio’s Oscar-nominated The Revenant came out tops at the US box office despite most of the East Coast of America being locked in the icy grip of Winter Storm Jonas.
Despite the ferocity of the killer snowstorm – a reported 17 people lost their lives to the blizzard – Americans in other parts of the country still turned up to watch DiCaprio brave some other forces of nature (killer bear and crazy cold), giving The Revenant a first place worthy $16 million haul in its third weekend on the charts.
Meanwhile, in case you were somehow living under the delusion that Star Wars was on its way out after conceding the top spot on the charts to Ride Along 2 last week, The Force Awakens rallied back for second place, earning a respectable $14.2 million in its sixth week. Not respectable was Ride Along 2‘s box office dip, as the comedy sequel had a 63% drop in revenue from its opening weekend for just a $12.96 take. I guess word of mouth that the movie is kind of sucky has finally spread.
But enough about returnees, as the next three entries are the charts are all brand new entries. And all had pretty soft openings. Debuting in fourth, fifth and sixth place respectively, Dirty Grandpa brought in $11.52 million, The Boy nabbed $11.26 million and The 5th Wave picked up $10.7 million. Having unfortunately seen Dirty Grandpa last week (review to appear tomorrow), I can confidently say that $11.52 million worth of cinemagoers should probably have just rather stayed home and watched the Weather Channel instead of going to see this blight on the careers of both Zac Efron and Robert De Niro.
Despite its fifth place placing though, The Boy actually performed a little better than predicted, and with the Lauren Cohan led horror coming with just a $10 million price tag, it’s actually not in a bad spot. The same cannot be said for The 5th Wave, which underperformed despite fan-favourite Chloe Grace Moretz as the head of this new sci-fi YA franchise. It’s $38 million price tag does look a long way off, but it has already pulled in enough in international territories to make that money back. Whether that’s enough to keep its film trilogy plans afloat though is another matter.
Here’s what’s happening on the rest of the charts:
- 1. The Revenant – $16 million (LW: 2nd)
- 2. Star Wars: The Force Awakens – $14.2 million (LW: 2nd)
- 3. Ride Along – $12.96 million (LW: 1st)
- 4. Dirty Grandpa – $11.52 million (NE)
- 5. The Boy – $11.26 million (NE)
- 6. The 5th Wave – $10.7 million (NE)
- 7. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi – $9.75 million (LW: 4th)
- 8. Daddy’s Home – $5.27 million (LW: 5th)
- 9. Norm of the North – $4.1 million (LW: 6th)
- 10. The Big Short – $3.5 million (LW: 6th)
There were a couple other notable new entries for this week, with the first actually doing good business despite it being nowhere near the Top 10. Highly anticipated (by me!) martial arts sequel Ip Man 3 – which features a fight between Donnie Yen and Mike Tyson among others – brought in just $762 400 for nineteenth place on the charts, but it had a limited opening of just 103 theatres, meaning that it actually made a fairly solid bit of cash. In comparison, Monster Hunt, the ginormous Chinese 3D fantasy adventure film which is currently the biggest box office hit of all time in its home country (as well as shattering several other records), also had a limited opening in the US in 45 theatres, but could only muster up a measly $21 000. I guess the Yanks don’t care too much for cute Asian monsters.
Meanwhile, despite having a surprisingly decent start, the Natalie Dormer led horror The Forest could only hang around the Top 10 for 2 weeks before dropping off the charts. It’s already nearly tripled its $10 million production budget though with a total haul of $27.6 million though, so it has certainly done its job.
(LW = Last Week, NE = New Entry)
Last Updated: January 25, 2016
