Christmas Box Office: 'Unbroken,' 'Into The Woods' Score Above, 'Selma,' 'American Sniper' Score Below

As is generally the case, Hollywood dumped a deluge of major product into theaters on Christmas Day in order to take advantage of the 1.5 weeks of “weekdays that act like weekends” that round out the end of the year. We had somewhat four wide releases, Walt Disney's DIS +0.65% Into the Woods (2,478 theaters), Angelina Jolie’s directorial effort Unbroken (3,131 theaters), Mark Wahlberg’s The Gambler (2,478 theaters), and Tim Burton’s Amy Adams/Christoph Waltz art-fraud dramedy Big Eyes (1,307 theaters). Also in semi-wide release is the expansion of Benedict Cumberbatch’s The Imitation Game (747 theaters) and the 331-theater debut of The Interview, which also debuted on nationwideVideo on Demand on Wednesday due to well, I think you know. Debuting in limited release was Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper in four theaters and the Martin Luther King biopic Selma in nineteen venues. May I remind you again that basically nothing opened at all in the first weekend of December? Okay, so with this much to cover, you’ll pardon me if I just concentrate on the newbies for at least today.

The top opener of Christmas Day is in-fact Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, which a stunning $15.59 million on its first day, including $850,000 in Wednesday previews. That’s the third-biggest Christmas Day debut ever, behind  Les Miserables ($18m), and Sherlock Holmes ($24m) and just ahead of Django Unchained ($15m) and Marley and Me ($14.8m). It’s the fifth-biggest Christmas Day gross ever. The Universal Pictures/Comcast Corp. film, which is about an American olympian who goes through the torments of World War II and then additional suffering as a prisoner in a Japanese POW camp, was positioned as a major Oscar contender with perhaps Ms. Jolie netting a Best Director nomination for her second such-effort. The heat has cooled considerably since the film’s first wave of screenings were of the mixed-positive variety, but a major debut weekend could arguably put it back in play or at least keep in on everyone’s radar.

If you recall, a surprisingly large $38 million four-day debut off a $11.8m Christmas day opening kept the Brad Pitt’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in play after lukewarm reviews. Christmas also fell on a Thursday that year (2008) as well, as it did in 2003 and 1997. The vast majority of the twelve respective openers those years did over/under 3.5x their Christmas debut figure, with really only Benjamin Button doing noticeably less (3.3x) and some of the kid-friendlier titles doing over/under 4x their Christmas haul. If Jolie’s Unbroken earns around 3.5x its Christmas numbers, then it gets a scorching $54m holiday debut, behind only Sherlock Holmes‘s $62m Fri-Sun Xmas debut and just ahead of Marley & Me‘s $50m Thurs-Sun debut. But even a 3.3x multiplier gets Unbroken to $50m by Sunday.

The next big release is Walt Disney’s Into the Woods. This is of course the star-studded (Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, Emily Blunt, Johnny Depp, Chris Pine, etc.) adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s beloved 1987 fairy tale deconstruction. The $60 million production kicked off its holiday frame with a robust $15.08 million, including $1.1m in Wednesday previews. That’s the fourth-biggest Christmas Day debut and the sixth-biggest Christmas Day gross ever. We may-well see the stage adaptation become the top new film of the weekend, as of course the film’s family-friendly qualities will presumably make it a bigger ticket over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday than the other adult-skewing releases. A 3x multiplier gets to $45m, a 3.5x multiplier gets it to $52m, and a 4x gets it to $60m, although that’s not likely.

I’d wager that the opening day may be a bit front-loaded as fans of the musical raced out to sample the Rob Marshall-directed film version. For example,Rent pulled over 27% of its five-day $17m Thanksgiving weekend haul on its $4.7m Wednesday. Les Miserables opened on Christmas 2012 (a Tuesday) with $18m, dropped to $12m on Wednesday, earned $9m on Friday and Saturday, $8m on Sunday, and then never had another day over $6.8m after  New Year’s Day for the rest of its (admittedly quite successful) domestic run. It’s not a direct comparison, but you get the idea. Nonetheless, this is a smashing start, and I’m sure Disney will being in tears on Sunday if the film earns “just” $40m for the frame.

The next new release is Paramount Pictures/Viacom Inc.’s The Gambler. The remake of the 1974 James Caan vehicle premiered at this year’s AFI Fest as a would-be Oscar contender, and the intent was originally for a platform debut yesterday and a wide release next month. But the film has basically zero chance at any awards recognition, so Paramount decided to just go wide on Christmas. And the Rupert Wyatt picture earned $5 million on its first day, which theoretically points to an $18m four-day debut. Keeping in mind that the picture cost just $25m to produce (for which Chartoff/Winkler Productions, Closest to the Hole Productions, and Leverage Entertainment footed the bill), there is little reason not to presume that Wahlberg’s star power won’t keep the film at least somewhat alive for the next few weeks. Between you and me, I would have kept this one in January, as it certainly would have made more of an impact as an adult alternative on January 2nd or January 23rd. But again, this wasn’t a pricey project and was never going to be a blockbuster.

The last wide release arguably also should have stayed put. The Weinstein Company’s Big Eyes was supposed to debut in limited release today, but the Tim Burton dramedy was moved into wide release after The Interview cancelled its wide release. Alas, the pretty terrific Amy Adams/Christoph Waltz vehicle, which also amounts to an Oscar push that might not happen, only made $1.42 million on its first day. At best we’re probably looking at a $6m four-day debut, although considering the screen count that wouldn’t be too terrible if it can keep up the momentum as a female-skewing multiplex option into the new year. Now before we carp about how low a number that is for Tim Burton, we should know that the film cost just $10m to produce. This was more of a “try something different” project, and the budget was low enough that it basically had to outgross Ed Wood in order to be profitable in the long-run.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/12/26/christmas-box-office-unbroken-into-the-woods-score-above-selma-american-sniper-score-below/