Box Office Week: For four day Christmas weekend Rogue One triumphs (#1, $96 mil), Sing impresses (#2, $56 mil), Passengers disappoints (#3, $23 mil), Why Him? does okay (#4, $16.7 mil), Assassin's Creed bombs (#5, $15 mil), while Fences and La La Land expand well ($6, $11.3 mil and #8 $9.7 mil).

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
1	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	$96,085,000	$555,483,674	2
2	Sing	$56,080,000	$93,954,652	1
3	Passengers	$30,425,201	$30,425,201	1
4	Why Him?	$16,715,000	$18,907,130	1
5	Assassin's Creed	$15,000,000	$36,692,398	1
6	Fences	$11,366,000	$11,557,515	2
7	Moana	$10,447,000	$327,979,191	5
8	La La Land	$9,700,000	$35,282,311	3
9	Office Christmas Party	$7,250,000	$81,222,010	3
10	Collateral Beauty	$7,060,000	$29,561,500	2

*I expanded the top 5 to the top 10 this week due to so many new wide releases. It will just be for this week. Also remember these are the four day totals from Dec 23-26.

Notable Box Office Stories:

• Any fears that the darker tone of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story would keep away general audiences were clearly unfounded as the film easily came in at #1 with $96 mil. That represents a 38% drop from last weekend, putting it right on point with The Force Awakens's drop last year on the same weekend (though Rogue One still made $100 mil less than TFA each weekend). Don't expect Rogue One to necessarily have the same legs as TFA, but already being the #9 highest grossing domestic film of 2016 and passing $300 mil domestic in just two weeks is no small feat. Internationally the film is doing well but is still waiting for The Great Wall to clear some space before we see if the addition of Chinese actor Donnie Yen and filmmaker Jiang Wen will bring in more crowds than TFA. Right now the film has past $500 mil worldwide making it the #11 highest grossing film of the year worldwide so far. This is a good sign for Rogue One that it will have similar legs to The Force Awakens so next weekend will be a big factor on if the film will continue to perform like TFA in the long-haul. At the very least that $1 bil marker seems very attainable right now.

• Illumination continues to prove their marketing magic as Sing opened to a very respectable $56 mil at #2. While not the insane $104 mil opening of Secret Life of Pets, this does mark the highest December opening for an animated film (Chipmunks movies don't count), so while this seems like classic low opening December weekend, the longtail for this one could be excellent as an alternative for the kids too young for Rogue One. However where this film is failing in comparison to previous Illumination releases is in foreign where despite the film being released two weeks prior has only managed to earn about $17 mil overseas. There's still a lot of markets to go but with such a crowded space and such a reliance on American pop music it may not have the broader international appeal of Minions or Pets. Still Sing has done well already on the usual lowered Illumination budget ($75 mil) and should be a viable alternative during the long winter box office week between now and New Years.

• Despite an ever present ad campaign with two of the hottest stars in Hollywood Passengers still couldn't overcome it's poor ratings to hit the mark. While coming in #3 with $30.4 mil for the four day isn't horrendous, it's certainly not in the upper ranges of what was anticipated. The take looks even worse when you just look at the typical three day weekend haul which was $14.9 mil, the second lowest wide-opening of Jennifer Lawrence's career behind House at the End of the Street. Even worse is the demographic breakdown was clearly not what the studio was expecting as a Sony chief said the film was appealing well to older crowds, definitely not the young people Sony hoped to get in. The film still has a chance internationally where it hasn't even opened yet and where traditionally audiences are much friendlier to A-listers. Still the film has a long way to go to make back its $110 mil budget and now that the marketing has shifted into full blockbuster style it seems Sony is concerned it won't get there.

• While the existential question that the title Why Him? raises may never be answered, it seemed audiences were sort of in the mood for an R-rated comedy as the film earned a solid $16.7 mil coming in at #4. Sandwiched between two $100 mil blockbusters may seem like a bit of a downturn but with a budget of $38 mil there is much less on the table for the film. The film was clearly going for the same surprise success of last year's Daddy's Home, but it seems Cranston and Franco aren't the next Ferrel and Whalberg as the film failed to even come close to the $38.7 mil that film made in it's Christmas three day weekend. The film should managed to stick around long enough to eek past its budget but will have to rely on foreign sale to finish out its run in the black.

• It seems that any video game film not called Angry Birds was doomed to domestic failure this year as the latest video game catastrophe Assassin's Creed opened to the predictable poor reviews and even poorer box office as the film opened at #5 to $15 mil. Despite the film being produced by the video game company Ubisoft and featuring one of the most talented cast and crews for any video game adaptation, it seems there's still an extreme lack of interest from the gaming community when their properties get adapted. Of course the bad reviews don't help but those didn't stop say Suicide Squad from opening phenomenally despite having few characters known by the public at large. Now the series is going to have to pray for major surprises overseas to cover its $125 mil budget. Barring a miracle it's pretty clear an Assassin's Creed film franchise is very unlikely.

• This week saw big expansions of two major Oscar contenders. First is Fences, the latest directorial effort from Denzel Washington that is expected to lead Viola Davis to a Supporting Actress win. The film played well, particularly to black and older audiences, making $11.3 mil for the four day weekend. This marked an amazing 8,679% increase in last week's total when it was just in 4 theaters, showing Paramount knew the perfect moment to expand. However hot on its heels is La La Land, which added 500 theaters this weekend but continued to sell out as it came in at #8 with $9.7 mil. The film had a per theater average of $13,215 which is truly remarkable for a film almost in 1,000 theaters. In two weekends we'll finally see the wide release for the film which should be very interesting to see if Lionsgate waited too long or just long enough. Already the film has passed it's $30 mil budget worldwide, earning $35.2 mil so far, mostly lead overseas by a surprising $10 mil haul so far from South Korea.

• It's gonna be a mega round-up of the other Oscar bait contenders this weekend, with some expansions and others that had their last chance for eligibility releases this week, so let's plow through them. First up Manchester by the Sea continues to earn well, finishing four day at #12 with $4.4 mil. Good haul but the fact it stayed pretty much the same from last weekend means the film may begin to peter out next week. Jackie, the Natalie Portman lead biopic about Jackie Kennedy expanded to 350 theaters coming in at #13 with $1.8 mil. Lion added a ton more theaters for a total of 500 but couldn't quite seem to use its many Golden Globe nominations to secure a huge expansion as it came in at #14 with $1.6 mil. On to new releases, the highest earning being Hidden Figures, the story of forgotten black female mathematicians who were integral to the early space program that may become a late entry Oscar spoiler depending its financial success. So far that success is looking promising as the film made $955,000 on just 25 screens, giving it a per theater average of $38,200. However it wasn't the biggest per theater average of the week as Martin Scorsese's latest Silence opened on just 4 screens to $180,000, a per theater average of $45,000. This marks good news for the film as it was feared the lack of nominations for the film in SAG and the Golden Globes may mean it will be snubbed at Oscars and lose potential nomination box office bump. Could be even if Silence is a critic's darling over an award's darling, the power of Scorsese's name will make it blossom. Also opening was Patriots Day, the second Peter Berg/Mark Whalberg 2016 film based on a recent national tragedy movie (is this a new genre?), this time about the Boston Bombings. The film scored well and earned $241,306 on 7 screens, a per theater average of $34,472. The film is likely trying to reach that magic middle America dollar that led to the insane success of American Sniper. Whether or not it manages to do that may be up to if it can score up some late nominations. Finally let's look at a clear example of reviews hurting an opening with Live By Night. The latest directorial effort from Ben Affleck is not looking as promising as his first three as it received some pretty harsh reviews which may explain why it made $56,000 on 4 screens, a per theater average of $14,000. While not terrible it's certainly not the high bar we are seeing from the other buzzier releases this week.

Films Reddit Wants to Follow

This is a segment where we keep a weekly tally of currently showing films that aren't in the Top 5 that fellow redditors want updates on. If you'd like me to add a film to this chart, make a comment in this thread.

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget	Week #
Your Name	N/A	$288,803,434	Unk	17
Moonlight	$11,957,076	$11,957,076	$5 mil	10
Doctor Strange	$228,565,966	$656,065,966	$165 mil	8
Arrival	$89,842,358	$144,421,073	$47 mil	7
Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them	$215,770,251	$744,570,251	$180 mil	6

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget
Boo! A Madea Halloween	$73,206,343	$74,792,994	$20 mil
Rules Don't Apply	$3,652,206	$3,652,206	$25 mil

As always /r/boxoffice is a great place to share links and other conversations about box office news.

Also you can see the archive of all Box Office Week posts at /r/moviesboxoffice.

Submitted December 27, 2016 at 09:25PM by mi-16evil http://ift.tt/2hk2ohQ