Heading into the weekend it was expected The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water would top the box office, but $55.3 million? The closest reader prediction was $44.2 million! That’s a massive result and $24 million more than The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie released in 2004, which, adjusted for inflation, would be about $42.7 million today. Tack on the 3D upcharge and SpongeBob has still gained an audience, though I must say, the “B” CinemaScore is lower than I would have expected.
Meanwhile, it isn’t good news for the weekend’s big budget releases. First off there’s Jupiter Ascending, the $176 million budgeted sci-fi from the Wachowskis finishing third with $18.3 million. To put that into comparison, John Carter opened with $30.1 million and even After Earth opened with $27.5 million.
Even worse off was Seventh Son, which Legendary and Universal are trying to convince us cost only $95 million, finishing with a dismal $7.2 million. Both films received a “B-” CinemaScore and I fully expect them to drop like a rock over the coming weeks, the question is, just how quickly will theater owners boot them both out of their theaters?
Speaking of which, remember Mortdecai losing a massive amount of theaters in their third weekend? Well, last weekend was Blackhat‘s turn for embarrassment, this weekend it was Mortdecai. After losing 90.4% of its theaters, the Johnny Depp starrer played in 253 theaters and made only $138,508, a 90.4% drop for a domestic cume so far of $7.6 million, the worst gross for a Depp release that opened in over 1,000 theaters. Yikes.
Finally, American Sniper continues to find an audience, dropping only 24% and bringing in another $23.2 million for a domestic cume of $281.3 million. Guess what, take the seven other Best Picture nominees, combine their domestic totals and Sniper still wins. On top of that, it is now the second highest grossing R-rated movie of all-time having passed The Matrix Reloaded‘s $281.5 million. Can it best the $370.7 million from The Passion of the Christ for #1?
Hopefully next weekend will bring much more interesting results as I think we all know it will be Fifty Shades of Grey taking the #1 spot, but how high will it go? Can it possibly contend with the $83.8 million opening of The Passion of the Christ? The first Twilight only managed $69.6 million so maybe not, but given this is a hard one to find a comparison it’s anyone’s guess. The other new release, and one I can’t wait to see after the good word of mouth, is Kingsman: The Secret Service. Two R-rated films and I expect both of them to do well next weekend.
