Box Office Week: Hidden Figures squeak into #1 with impressive $22.8 mil wide release. Rogue One drops to #2 with $22 mil. Worldwide RO has passed $900 mil but it flops in Chinese opening weekend. Also Underworld: Blood Wars underwhelms (#4, $13.6 mil) and A Monster Calls bombs (#13, $2 mil).

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
1	Hidden Figures	$22,800,000	$25,754,178	3
2	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	$22,063,570	$927,464,924	4
3	Sing	$20,712,365	$358,012,010	3
4	Underworld: Blood Wars	$13,688,751	$58,169,714	1
5	La La Land	$10,132,213	$85,888,800	5

Notable Box Office Stories:

• With Birth of a Nation all but guaranteed to be snubbed for every Oscar category, 20th Century Fox has put all of its Oscar race power into Hidden Figures which paid off this week as the film became the first movie to take the #1 spot from Rogue One, opening with an impressive $22.8 mil. The film was predicted for a while to be a popular hit amongst filmgoers but even this number was a surprise for many. Part of the appeal of Hidden Figures is likely the tone, as it takes more of a dramedy approach to the stale biopic formula and the marketing emphasized the fun, feel good nature of the film. Seems audiences agree, as it scored an impressive A+ on Cinemascore and it should have great domestic legs as the family friendly Oscar option alongside La La Land. The film also surprised in terms of demographics, as the majority of the audience was white females under the age of 35. While it did have a significant African American demo, the film seems to be playing to audiences who typically avoid biopic about African Americans, meaning Fox may have a multi quadrant hit on their hands. Most analysts expect the film to receive a Best Picture nomination so expect this film to have great legs in the future.

• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story just barely missed #1, dropping in its fourth week to #2 with $22 mil. With this recent haul Rogue One has now passed some major milestones. Domestically the film now tops out at $477 mil, which makes it the second highest grossing domestic film of the year, just under Finding Dory at $486 mil. The film is now also just under Dory in the best domestic gross of all time list, placing it #8, passing both Star Wars (#9) and Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (#10), making it the second highest grossing Star Wars film domestically. However the film does seem to be slowing down. Right now the film is likely looking at best to pass The Dark Knight at $534 mil, but it's doubtful it will make more than $600 mil domestic. The film also passed $900 mil worldwide and is primed to become only the second Star Wars film ever to break $1 bil worldwide. It also means the top 5 worldwide grossing films of 2016 are now all Disney. So clearly Rogue One has been a massive success in most of the major markets but this week it saw its first true flop, namely in the second biggest market out there, China. Last year The Force Awakens made a decent if not remarkable $124 mil in China. Disney was clearly hoping the inclusion of Chinese star Donnie Yen would make Star Wars break through to the Chinese market but that clearly didn't work as the film had an opening weekend of just $30.6 mil. In comparison The Force Awakens made $33 mil in it's opening day in China, so clearly this is a major disappointment for Disney. Right now the film is opening about as well as Star Trek Beyond did earlier in the year, a pretty disappointing figure when comparing the behemoth of Star Wars to the small scale earning of the Trek reboot films. In general Disney has had a very odd year for foreign gross. Some films like Zootopia and Jungle Book have done exceptionally well overseas in countries like Japan and China while movies like Finding Dory, Moana, and Rogue One can't seem to get a proper foothold despite major domestic success. Dory in particular is a fascinating comparison piece to Rogue One as both are now in the top 10 domestic earners of all time but both have almost 50% splits between domestic and foreign, while other major blockbusters this year like Fantastic Beasts are looking at splits of 30% domestic and 70% foreign. The real question is the fact that Disney has such a strong domestic hold good news in a time of dwindling US interest in theatrical films or is there worry that as international markets begin to supersede the US market that Disney will be left behind?

• Normally a big studio movie about guns and supernatural creatures opening as Underworld: Blood Wars did at #4 with $13.6 mil would be a disaster but with this franchise it's mostly par for the course. Don't get me wrong, the opening is still a significant downgrade from the previous entries in the vampires v ~werewolves~ lycans series; $12 mil less than the previous entry Awakening and $7 mil less than previous worst opener Rise of the Lycans. However unlike the previous film, Blood Wars went back to the rather cheap model of the first three films, costing only $35 mil to make. It seems Screen Gems was expecting this low domestic opening as they released the film weeks earlier overseas where it's done much better. In just two weeks the film has earned $42 mil internationally, meaning it just has to make $8 mil more to be the second best earning Underworld film internationally. In particular it is having significant showings in Brazil and Russia. Awakening almost managed to make $100 mil overseas so Blood Wars has potential for an even higher ceiling. However Underwold has never been a major franchise, usually only earning $100 - $200 mil worldwide for each film. With such a weak domestic opening Blood Wars should end about the same but with this increased international interest don't be shocked if Underworld isn't dead yet.

• Good reviews only go so far as while A Monster Calls opened wide to positive critical responses it utterly bombed at the box office, opening wide at #13 with just $2 mil. That gives it a per theater average of $1,326, placing it in the top 100 for worst opening weekend averages. As for why this film failed, there's several possible reasons. One is that the tone, that of a dark fairytale about grief, is hard to convey in a trailer or poster which means many couldn't place if it was a film for them (a similar problem Kubo and the Two Strings faced). It also hurts the film that its biggest lead star was Liam Neeson who only voices the titular monster (though notably at least one theater attempted to use him anyways). Finally the film's release date was changed so often it was hard to pin down exactly when it was being released. It's too bad because the film not only was well received by most critics but also received a great A rating on Cinemascore. The film probably should have tried harder for the Christmas market, especially since even poor reviewed weepies like Collateral Beauty ended up okay on the other end. The $43 mil budget will clearly not be made up in the US but overseas it has a chance. The film has already made $34 overseas, mostly led by a great showing in director J.A. Bayona's home country of Spain. The film will have to rely now on upcoming openings in the UK and Mexico for it to even come close to make back it's budget.

• Yup, it's Oscar update time. First up is La La Land. While some expected the film to perform more alongside the Hidden Figures numbers for its wide release, the film did score a #5 spot with $10.1 mil for the weekend. Much like the rest of the box office, La La Land suffered from bad weather which could affect next weekend as well. Of course the biggest boon to the film now is its historic seven award win at the Golden Globes, which will surely be the key for the marketing till the Oscar nominations. The film is also having a limited IMAX run starting next weekend as well as full expansion to capitalize on the MLK holiday. The film is already a big success, now the 18th highest grossing musical domestically, surpassing The Phantom of the Opera. Scorsese's latest Silence added 47 theaters this weekend and made $480,000, a per theater average $9,412 which is good but maybe lower than expected. Will be interesting to see if the film can overcome its dark tone and lack of Oscar buzz to open well in wide release next weekend. Finally 20th Century Women added 4 more theaters and made $142,824, a per theater average of $14,282. It too will open wide next weekend.

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	19
Moonlight	$13,262,486	$13,262,486	$5 mil	12
Doctor Strange	$230,920,918	$658,865,752	$165 mil	10
Arrival	$94,077,522	$154,579,835	$47 mil	9
Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them	$229,181,573	$794,881,573	$180 mil	8

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget
The Girl on the Train	$75,395,035	$172,302,065	$45 mil
Queen of Katwe	$8,874,389	$10,093,487	$15 mil
The Edge of Seventeen	$14,431,633	$14,904,410	$9 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 January 10, 2017 at 08:49AM by mi-16evil http://ift.tt/2i7Iz2F