While the calendar year may have changed, the box office looks remarkably similar, as the first champion of the 2015 weekend was the same one who won the last weekend of 2014. The third installment of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, came away the victor in a week that saw most of the top ten filled with old releases. The weekend total of $21.9 million was a noticeable drop in the film’s revenue, and was a noticeably smaller gap this time around, with Into The Woods taking the second spot with $19 million. The Rob Marshall helmed adaptation of the Sondheim musical rose up the charts, switching places with the Angelina Jolie directed biopic Unbroken, which took third place with $18.3 million.
The horror sequel The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death was the only film to break the top ten for the first time, as the new release made its way to fourth place, with Night At the Museum: Secret of the Tomb rounding out the top five. It wasn’t the only new entry in the list from last week, however, as Disney’s Big Hero 6 climbed back into the top ten despite being in its ninth week. The new entries came at the expense of the Ridley Scott biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings and the Reese Witherspoon-starring Wild, both of which fell out of the top ten.
Among limited releases, the big entry was A Most Violent Year, the new film from J.C. Chandor. Starring former Juillard classmates Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, the film earned $188,000 in four theatres over the weekend, garnering a PSA of $47,000. Among the other openings of the week, the biggest earner was the Mandarin language film The Taking of Tiger Mountain, which earned $55,000 in seven theatres, leading to a PSA of $7,857. The other limited releases included the French language film Li’l Quinquin, which took home $2,500 playing in one theatre, and The Search for General Tso, which made $9,600 for a PSA of $4,800.
The top earners at the US box office for the weekend is as follows:
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies — $21,910,000
- Into The Woods — $19,066,000
- Unbroken — $18,358,000
- The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death — $15,145,000
- Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb — $14,450,000
- Annie — $11,400,000
- The Imitation Game — $8,111,000
- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1 — $7,700,000
- The Gambler — $6,300,000
- Big Hero 6 — $4,816,000