Battle at the Box Office 12/1

Mockingjay Part 1 easily held out against some of the weaker Thanksgiving releases in recent memory, adding another  $56.9 million for the weekend and putting it over $225.7 million for it’s two weeks out.  If it can keep up it’s pace, it will most likely end up in the top 3 for 2014 but it’s going to be a tight race for first place, which is currently Guardians of the Galaxy with $331.9 million.  Mockingjay is currently sitting in seventh for the year behind X-Men: Days of Future Past.

In a distant second was Penguins of Madagascar, which made $25 million for the weekend and $36 million for it’s five days out.  The Madagascar movies both opened to over $60 million in normal three day weekends and it’s a worse opening than Mr. Peabody and Sherman from earlier this year.  It also barely beat Dreamworks pre-Thanksgiving underperformer from last year, Rise of the Guardians.

Big Hero 6 dropped to third due to the direct animated competition but only lost 6.7% of it’s take from last weekend, pulling in another $18.7 million and bringing it to over $167 million.

Interstellar dropped to fourth with another $15.8 million but was actually up slightly from it’s previous weekend, possibly getting a boost from families going together during the holiday weekend.

Rounding out the top five was Horrible Bosses 2 with an incredibly disappointing $15.7 million and $23 million for it’s five days out.  The first movie made $28.3 million in a normal three day weekend.

The Theory of Everything expanded wide this weekend to 802 theaters and moved up to seventh with $5.1 million and it’s made $9.6 million overall.  It’s got tons of Oscar buzz and critical acclaim, so it should remain strong in the next few weeks as more people hear about and see it.

The Imitation Game opened in only four theaters this past weekend but made $482,000, the second best per-screen average of the year behind The Grand Budapest Hotel.  The movie should be slowly expanding over the next month or so.