Box Office: Strong Debuts by 'Unbroken' and 'Into the Woods' can't Topple 'The Hobbit 3'

1. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies- $41.4M/$168.5M
Turns out audiences haven't grown bored of Middle Earth quite yet. Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies dominated the 5-day Christmas holiday with $54M overall, $41M over the weekend. Overall it will have passed the $500M worldwide mark probably by tomorrow, and when all is said and done it should be right up there with Guardians of the Galaxy as the top earners of the year.
2. Unbroken- $31.7M/$47.3M
Angelina Jolie's sophomore directorial effort, Unbroken, got off to the kind of powerhouse opening Academy voters will love with $47M over the holiday. The film, which stars breakout actor Jack O'Connell as Olympian and WWII hero Louis Zamperini, was built for this time of season and it showed. In an extremely crowded week, its $47M debut counts as the third best ever for Christmas week. Jolie's name was pretty much what the movie was promoted on, not that she spends a single moment in front of the camera, and clearly she turned out to be just as much of a draw as the inspiring true story being told.
3. Into the Woods- $31M/$46.1M
Disney's star-studded musical Into the Woods nearly sang its way past Jolie but just fell short with $46M over the 5-day week. The film boasts more superstars than anything in theaters right now with Anna Kendrick, Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Chris Pine, and more as iconic fairy tale characters. Does this count as a much-needed win for Depp, who has had four flops in a row? Probably not. He only appears in the film for a hot second as the Big Bad Wolf, and this one was all about the ensemble, anyway. Sorry, Depp. Better look forward to Mortdecai (which looks awful) for Depp's next chance to rebound. Anyway, it's a big win for Disney and a good month for musicals overall with the Annie remake also performing well. More on that later.
4. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb- $20.6M/$55.3M
Showing why so many family-friendly movies open around Christmas, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb bounded 20% from last week for $20.6M. Considering the mediocre start from last week this makes things look somewhat better.
5. Annie- $16.6M/$45.8M
And continuing to sing its way to our hearts is Annie, the hip-hop remake starring Jamie Foxx, Quvenzhane Wallis, and Cameron Diaz. It didn't seem to be fazed by having another high-profile musical like Into the Woods opening, as the film earned $16.6M, nearly 5% up from last week.
6. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 1- $10M/$306.6M
7. The Gambler- $9.3M/$14.3M
A Mark Wahlberg-led remake of a 1974 James Caan film few remember? The Gambler was always going to have a tough go of it, especially this time of year with audiences looking for something relatively harmless, but the film still managed to perform well with $14M over the holiday. Once eyed as a potential Oscar contender, The Gambler probably won't meet those expectations, but the $25M flick has a solid performance by Wahlberg that has gained it some solid word of mouth. It's a good film, worth checking out if you can get away from the kiddies.
8. The Imitation Game- $7.9M/$14.6M
Booming to over 740 theaters, an increase of 800%(!!!), The Imitation Game is clearly being positioned as a Best Picture frontrunner. This is pretty much how things went with The King's Speech a few years ago, rolling out small in November before going huge a month later. We'll see if Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley can bring the story of heroic mathematician Alan Turing some gold.
9. Exodus: Gods and Kings- $6.75M/$52.5M
10. Wild- $5.4M/$16.3M

Told you this was a crowded week. There were a number of major films that had tiny platform releases worth mentioning. Ava DuVernay's MLK Jr. drama Selma opened in 19 sites for $912K, which isn't bad at all for a film many (like me) perceive as the best of the year. It will expand in a few weeks. Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper's American Sniper, in which Cooper gains a Texas accent and mad sharpshooting skills, got off to an incredible start with $610K at only 4 locations. That's another one many are looking at as an Oscar candidate, both for Eastwood and Cooper.

Tim Burton's art world dramedy Big Eyes earned $4.4M over the 5-day holiday, opening in just over 1300 theaters. That's pretty small by Burton standards, but consider that it was only supposed to get a small Christmas release by Sony until they were forced to scramble after the whole fiasco with The Interview.

Speaking of which, The Interview did $2.85M of business in its 331 locations. Of course the film also opened on VOD, and we won't have those numbers for awhile, but no matter what Sony is going to eat it big time on this one. If they had just left well enough alone and kept it in the original number of theaters (likely 3000 or more) it probably would have made back the $40M+ production budget. Now it doesn't have a prayer, not even when the Blu-Ray release hits.