With everything shuttered more tightly than the sides of a hipster’s haircut, the final top 10 for 2015 didn’t appear. Normally if there is such a skip, I just backdate the post. But seeing this is 2015’s final hurrah, it deserves some face time…
Not for the lead, of course. If you didn’t guess the top movie is Star Wars, you arrived here by mistake and quite possibly have no idea how a search engine works. Pretty much certain to shatter Avatar’s $2 billion benchmark of box office awesomeness, the $4 billion Disney paid for Lucas’ nest egg may have been the deal of the century.
But while the Force is tucked into the top spot, below things are more turbulent. Even though only two new movies arrived on the scene, they stirred the nest.
Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Road Chip arrived in the final weekend of 2015 at the 2nd spot. Sparing myself the prospect of throwing away two minutes of my life, I have skipped the trailer and wagered a guess that it’s about a road trip starring the three helium-voiced animated chipmunks Alvin, Simon and Theodore.
The film joins Little Prince and The Peanuts Movie, making it a rare animation trio on the charts. The genre is almost always represented, but 2015 was a lousy year for it. The best four animated films in terms of performance were Inside Out, Minions and Hotel Transylvania 2.
Little Prince made a valiant effort, but isn’t likely to join that crowd. After three weeks it moved five spots to 8th and will likely be gone next week. Yes, I know I’m writing this after the fact, but let’s keep our minds back in late 2015, when we were younger, faster and handsomer.
Sadly Peanuts is not joining that particular gaggle either. It’s been a modest hit in the US, mainly thanks to a rather big $90 million budget. Locally it took a tumble from 5th last week to 10th this past weekend.
You can’t beat a low budget and good timing. Reviewers may be calling it holiday fodder, but Love The Coopers has made a tidy profit on a pretty small $12 million budget. It aimed to be the top family-themed family drama for Christmas and succeeded. Even in SA it bucked the trend and stepped up from 6th to 7th.
Local comedy Trouvoete slipped a modest one spot to 9th from its debut last week, while The Hunger Games also takes a respectable single step back to 7th. The two more significant drops are The Last Witch Hunter, down two to 5th, and Spectre’s topple from its number 2 perch. Bond rolls to 4th, but he may find firm footing there.
One half of the gang who caught 007 off guard were those chipmunks. The other half was Point Break, the remake that makes Kervyn pull a face as if he just walked into someone’s dirty socks. Costing over $100 million to make, this one seems destined to become a crater and may lead 2016 to its first megaflop.
- 01. STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (Incl 3D, Imax & 4DX)
- 02. ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS: THE ROAD CHIP
- 03. POINT BREAK (Incl 3D)
- 04. SPECTRE (Incl Imax)
- 05. THE LAST WITCH HUNTER
- 06. LOVE THE COOPERS
- 07. HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2 (Incl 3D & Imax)
- 08. LITTLE PRINCE (Incl 3D)
- 09. TROUVOETE
- 10. SNOOPY & CHARLIE BROWN: THE PEANUTS MOVIE (Incl 3D)
Leaving the charts this week are Creed, ending a respectable four weeks on the charts, and The Gift bows out after a two week run.
As 2015 drew to an end Spectre was still the top earner with over R35 million.
Last Updated: January 6, 2016
