Weekend Box Office: The Good Dinosaur Is Just… Good

Part 2 is once again on top of the box office, although not without some major challengers to the throne! The most recent “Hunger Games” generated $36.5 million out of China, but it was held back three months for release, which likely depressed ticket sales.

Part 2 dominated overall in its second outing, earning $75.8 million for the Wednesday-Sunday holiday stretch. Overseas, Good Dinosaur opened to a promising $28.7 million for a global bow of $84 million. The film, which cost a reported $175 million to $200 million to produce, grossed $55.6 million in its first five days in theaters. Worldwide it has made roughly $441 million, after just 10 days of release. Grossing an estimated $56 million, the prehistoric animated feature fell short of projections of more than $60 million.

Ryan Coogler’s film, part of which was shot in Liverpool, has received glowing reviews from critics, one of whom said it was “the best Rocky film since the [1976] original”. The drop of 50% was the best sophomore weekend slide that the four-film franchise has ever seen and was slightly better than the 53% dips seen by the last two installments which were also over this same holiday session. The film revives Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky in an inspiring story about his rival Apollo Creed’s illegitimate son, played by Michael B. Jordan.

Being a huge fan of the Rocky movie franchise, I thought this would be a great movie to see and according to reports Creed was a big hit with moviegoers.

“The reviews are incredible and we’re seeing that word-of-mouth start to spread”, said Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros. distribution executive vice president. After a three weekend slow burn in small release, Brooklyn rode some solid word of mouth and an enviable 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (leave it to Dan Schindel of Movie Mezzanine and Gary Wolcott of the Tri-City Herald to ruin everyone’s buzz) to ninth place. In less pleasant news Victor Frankenstein opened wide in the U.S. and was totally ignored – taking just $2.35 million.

But how did the rest of the movies do at the weekend box office?

The James Bond movie added another $12.8 million in its fourth weekend while the Charlie Brown movie garnered around $9.7 million in its fourth weekend. The Danish Girl expands on December 11 and will continue to widen throughout the Christmas season. Open Road’s “Spotlight” grossed $5.7 million on fewer than 900 screens.