It was a big weekend, in fact this President’s Day Weekend the top box office films did better than any weekend in 2014. 3 films stood at the top, one of them standing far and above the other 2.
“Fifty Shades of Grey” made over $94 million dollars over 4 days. After selling over 100 million copies of the book this shouldn’t be a surprise. It was heavily marketed and scheduled during Valentine’s Day. There really wasn’t any doubt it would do well but the level that it would hit was somewhat in question. The marketing didn’t hint much at the BDSM but mostly at the romance, lots of shirtless Mr. Grey.
There is a chance that Fifty Shades success doesn’t last, the movie didn’t get good reviews. It’s barely 2% above “Jupiter Ascending” on rottentomatoes.com, however, that never really stopped people from watching the Twilight films. We’ll just have to wait until next weekend to see how the numbers fall.
In second place “Kingsman: The Secret Service” did pretty well. You can read our review here. Basically it ended up being the alternative to Fifty Shades. Both R-Rated, one action, one ‘romance.’ It got good reviews, had solid marketing and has been pushed by Fox for a long time.
| Rank | Title | Studio | Weekend Gross | % Change | Total Gross | Week # | |||||
| 1 | Fifty Shades of Grey | Uni. | $94,395,000 | – | $94,395,000 | 1 | |||||
| 2 | Kingsman: The Secret Service | Fox | $42,000,000 | – | $42,000,000 | 1 | |||||
| 3 | The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water | Par. | $40,000,000 | -27.8% | $103,133,000 | 2 | |||||
| 4 | American Sniper | WB | $19,460,000 | -16.4% | $307,158,000 | 8 | |||||
| 5 | Jupiter Ascending | WB | $10,680,000 | -41.9% | $33,801,000 | 2 | |||||
Next weekend is a bit of a mixed bag, we’ve got a high school comedy with “The DUFF,” a sequel we didn’t need with “Hot Tub Time Machine 2,” and another Disney feel good sports flick in “McFarland, USA.”
A quick note on budgets and dollar figures:
Films making back their budgets is a good sign, but that is just the money to film. It doesn’t include distribution and marketing. Marketing can cost as much as a film. That big Superbowl spot is spendy. So take that into account when judging a film’s success. Hitting $100 million isn’t the same as it once was.
All dollar amounts in the top 5 come from estimates based on ticket sales unless noted otherwise. Occasionally this article will be published when actual results come out, which is usually late Monday afternoon. For more about this and other ins and outs of movie tracking click here.