What a crazy weekend that was with little over a million between the 5th installment in the Die Hard series and holdover Identity Thief. But in the end John McClane pulled through (barely) to claim the top spot during this past Presidents weekend. Meanwhile Safe Haven was strong, Beautiful Creatures bombed and a certain hobbit snuck past a very important milestone.
A Good Day to Die Hard got off to a decent, if disappointing, start with $28.6 million for the long 4-day Presidents weekend. So after 5 days this R-rated throwback has accumulated $36.8 million. Unfortunately that’s more than just slightly less compared to the $48.3 million Live Free or Die Hard (2007) had at the same point in its run. With the general consent being that A Good Day to Die Hard is by far the weakest entry, at this point I can’t see more than $80-90 million overall. Based on how well it will do internationally, this modest numbers (for a Die Hard film anyway) could potentially make Fox reconsider the idea of a 6th movie.
Identity Thief was 2nd with an amazing $27.4 million 4-day weekend. That puts the film at $74.7 million after 11 days, well on track to finish ahead of director Seth Gordon’s previous flick, Horrible Bosses ($117.5 million). With A Good Day to Die Hard disappointing, there’s a good chance Identity Thief might remain the #1 highest grossing film of 2013 for a good few more weeks. That’s kind of sad if I’m all honest.
Now we know we can’t have a Valentine without the titular romantic comedy and for 2013 Safe Haven came knocking. Sappy or not, with $24.4 million over the long weekend and $33.2 million after 5 days, Safe Haven almost ties Dear John ($34.5 million) for the fastest Nicholas Sparks grosser. Pretty good and it should ensure at least $70 million by the time it leaves theaters, all for just $28 million (that’s the budget for those wondering).
It’s past the middle of February and there is zero family fare out there on the big screen. Actually scratch that, we got animation Escape from Planet Earth on the 15th. Now this ain’t no Pixar or DreamWorks film but for a whatever this is, a $21.1 million opening is good. Plus it came cheap, $40 million.
My favorite film of 2013 so far, Warm Bodies, rounds out the top 5 with $10.5 million for a total of $51.7 million in 18 days. Currently sitting at #8 among zombie flicks, at the rate this is going, I’d say Warm Bodies has all but locked #3 with anywhere from $65 to even $75 million (Zombieland in 2nd might be in trouble). No, forget that, I don’t care what Box Office Mojo thinks, Hotel Transylvania is NOT a zombie flick. It might have zombies but that doesn’t make it part of the zombie sub-genre, not really anyway. So bump everything here up one spot and who knows, we might just see Warm Bodies at #1 eventually (among its peers), well, at least until World War Z comes out anyway.
Beautiful Creatures was the last new release of the weekend and wow, $8.9 million over the long weekend and $11.4 million in 5 days, that’s bad for a film trying to become the next big book adaptation. At least one thing is certain now, Beautiful Creatures won’t recoup its budget ($60 million) domestically.
One last thing, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey finally passed the $300 million mark on Monday, becoming the 43rd film to ever get there and the 5th that came out in 2012, a new record for the last part.
So question of the day, is Hotel Transylvania a zombie flick just because it features a few rotten undead corpses as secondary characters?
