After a few weeks of mostly lukewarm offerings, this weekend saw the start of the fall contender season with some really great movies hitting, ones that did very well at the box office as well. What this weekend had for openers are two films with a good bit of power behind them and mostly the same budgets as both are listed at $165 million each. Big Hero 6 opened domestically and in a small number of international markets whereas Interstellar opened domestically and in a number of major markets overseas.
On the domestic side, the two battled it out really well when you consider the differences. Interstellar clocks in at an hour longer, which means fewer showings overall, and while it can boost things with IMAX, it doesn’t have 3D showings to help raise its level. Big Hero 6 is under two hours for maximum showings and has the 3D advantage. So with Big Hero 6 ahead by $6 million over Interstellar, it’s pretty impressive overall for both films in what they accomplished. Big Hero 6 in particular is an uncommon movie in that original animated films are rare in that they open over $50 million – it’s up 15% of what Wreck-It Ralph did a couple of years ago as well.
With Interstellar, there’s the obvious ease in doing comparison’s to Christopher Nolan’s other recent films, though the The Dark Knight trilogy is a beast unto itself and original – and seemingly complex – works tend to not fare as well. His Inception film did better by about $13 million as did several other science fiction oriented works of the last few years. But again, the running time is something that works against it, though audiences are likely more open to stories of this nature of the way Gravity worked last year in presenting serious science fiction. Interstellar also had a very strong opening overseas where it did $80 million in its first round, which brings its worldwide debut up to $130 million, giving it the top spot in the big picture view.
| RANK | TITLE | DISTRIBUTOR NAME | WEEKEND REVENUE | CUME REVENUE | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| REVENUE | # OF LOCATIONS* | LOC AVG | ||||
| 1 | Big Hero 6 | Disney | $56,200,000 | 3,761 | 14,942 | $56,200,000 |
| 2 | Interstellar | Paramount | $50,000,000 | 3,561 | 14,040 | $52,151,453 |
| 3 | Gone Girl | 20th Century Fox | $6,100,000 | 2,224 | 2,742 | $145,428,422 |
| 4 | Ouija | Universal | $6,016,600 | 2,680 | 2,245 | $43,471,685 |
| 5 | St. Vincent | The Weinstein Company | $5,707,000 | 2,455 | 2,324 | $27,356,031 |
| 6 | Nightcrawler | Open Road | $5,511,560 | 2,766 | 1,992 | $19,756,437 |
| 7 | Fury | Sony | $5,500,000 | 2,834 | 1,940 | $69,268,229 |
| 8 | John Wick | Lionsgate | $4,075,000 | 2,152 | 1,893 | $34,744,659 |
| 9 | Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No | Disney | $3,495,000 | 2,381 | 1,467 | $59,208,370 |
| 10 | Book Of Life, The | 20th Century Fox | $2,800,000 | 2,166 | 1,292 | $45,214,925 |
| 11 | Birdman | Fox Searchlight | $2,300,000 | 462 | 4,978 | $8,086,252 |
| 12 | Judge, The | Warner Bros. | $1,770,000 | 1,215 | 1,456 | $42,579,245 |
