• Rogue One’s record-setting weekend haul
Although it didn’t threaten last summer’s box office performance from Stars Wars: The Force Awakens, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story had the second best opening weekend of the year. Total box office on the last weekend before Christmas pushed just north of $20m to boost the December 2016 receipts. Just four movies made it over $1m with one film slipping into the top five with under $300,000.
1. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story $14.75m
The first “stand alone” Star Wars outing was well short of the $27.25m effort from The Force Awakens last December, however the new movie has managed to make a dent in the record books. Rogue One’s opening numbers see it remembered as the second biggest opening of 2016 (so far!) where it trails only Deadpool with $14.95m way back in February 2016. Rogue One also makes the top 10 best opening weekends of all time where it ranks #9, just behind Deadpool and narrowly ahead of Fast & Furious 7 from April 2015. Rogue One opened on 923 screens which just trails the 941 screens that were screening The Force Awakens. Rogue One was no match for the screen average of The Force Awakens – this weekend’s box office champ had a screen average of $15,834 which is dwarfed by The Force Awakens which did $28,964. As far as the past weekend is concerned though, Rogue One was clearly the only game in town, accounting for close to 3 out of every 4 tickets sold.
2. Trolls $1.82m
The third weekend of the animated movie saw it climb from #3 to #2, with box office down just 16% as school holiday audiences started to kick in. The film is still screening on close to 450 screens after dropping just 44 over the weekend to 442.
3. Office Christmas Party $1.14m
A respectable number given the opposition – the movie shed 46% week-on-week as it disappeared from 151 screens. It had the second-best screen average of the weekend with $4,272.
4. Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them $1.08m
The movie hangs in the top five on its fifth weekend of release – still on close to 400 screens with a screen average just under $4,000. Total box office will pass $30m to-date this week.
5. Hacksaw Ridge $289,000
The film remains on just 149 screens with a screen average of $1,940. The film should pass $8m before it disappears out of the top 20.