Three new films cracked the weekend top ten, but last weekend's two new releases repeated at the top of the box office by a large margin. Both Spectre and The Peanuts Movie enjoyed strong holds from last weekend with the new James Bond film fairing especially well, enjoying the smallest second weekend franchise drop since Casino Royale, pushing the new title over $130 million. It was the holiday comedy Love the Coopers ranking highest among the newcomers, but the Bollywood film Prem Ratan Dhan Payo carried over its record-breaking India debut into a top ten finish domestically. Meanwhile Angelina Jolie's By the Sea hardly even registered in its ten theater debut as the weekend itself was down 34.9%.
Settling into #1 for a second weekend in a row, the 24th James Bond film, Spectre, brought in an estimated $35.4 million for only a 49.7% drop. As impressive as that may be, it's overseas where the film is making the most waves this weekend. After breaking records in the U.K., the film took in an estimated $48 million in China this weekend. If that estimate holds it's looking at China records as the largest opening weekend and largest opening three days of all time for any 2D US film. Add to that, it's already encroaching on the $59 million Skyfall made during its entire China run.
Of that China number, $4.6 million came from 246 IMAX screens, which was also a new three-day record for a November release, besting Interstellar. Spectre currently sits at $543.8 million worldwide, moving it into the top ten for the year.
Maintaining its second place position from last weekend is The Peanuts Movie. The film dropped a little more than I projected, but the estimated $24.2 million sophomore session puts the film at $82 million domestically. Overseas, however, it hasn't made much of a dent. Opening in only twelve territories so far, Snoopy and the gang have generated only $8.1 million, including a disappointing $4.2 million from China after two weeks in release. It still has one more weekend to take in as much as it can before Pixar's The Good Dinosaur starts stealing audience's animated attention.
Third place is where we find the week's first newcomer in CBS Films' and Lionsgate's Love the Coopers. Performing better than my predictions, the holiday, family feature brought in an estimated $8.4 million from 2,603 theaters. The "B-" CinemaScore doesn't suggest a strong audience response, but being the only such film in wide release it should have a decent holdover.
The Martian, now the sixth highest grossing release of 2015, continues its strong run with a 25.9% drop and an estimated $6.7 million in its seventh weekend. Worldwide, The Martian has moved ahead of San Andreas and into eleventh position for the year with a $477.9 million cume.
Finishing fifth is WB's The 33, which kicked off its theatrical run with an estimated $5.8 million. Headlined by Antonio Banderas, the Chilean miner drama didn't score enough to make much of its solid, "A" CinemaScore, but at least those that saw it—73% of which were over 25—seemed to enjoy it. Speaking of WB, the studio didn't even announce weekend estimates for Our Brand is Crisis, which the studio pulled from 1,701 theaters as it entered only its third weekend. The Sandra Bullock starrer managed an estimated $63k on Friday from 501 theaters and we'll have to wait for Monday's actuals to see where it ended up for the weekend.
Finishing in eighth place was Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, which opened on Thursday, day-and-date with India where it scored an opening day record of $8.61 million. That bests the previous record holder, Happy New Year, which brought in $8.1 million last year, also opening during India's Diwali festival. Domestically the film brought in an estimated $2.4 million from 286 theaters this weekend, the fourth largest Bollywood opening of all-time in North America and the largest opener for the film's distributor FIP.
In ninth we have a career milestone for Adam Sandler as Hotel Transylvania 2 added an estimated $2.3 million to its domestic run, which brings its cume to $165.2 million, making it Adam Sandler's highest grossing domestic release of all-time.
Unable to crack the top ten, Aviron's My All American finished in twelfth position with an estimated $1.3 million opening from 1,565 theaters for a paltry $889 per theater. Coming on the heels of the similarly themed Woodlawn couldn't have helped matters as My All American did score an "A" CinemaScore with opening day audiences, but that opening is just too low to expect any kind of significant holdover.
From there we have to scroll down the charts to find Angelina Jolie's By the Sea. Written, directed by and starring Jolie alongside her husband, Brad Pitt, the '70s set, disintegrating marriage feature managed only $95,440 on ten screens. Budgeted at a reported $10 million, Universal will expand the film's release into 120 theaters next weekend in hopes of finding a broader audience.
Still in limited release, Open Road's Spotlight showed impressive second weekend returns with an estimated $1.39 million from 61 theaters for a weekend best, $22,925 per theater average. Just behind it was Fox Searchlight's Brooklyn, which is also slowly expanding and brought in $485,000 this weekend from 23 theaters for a $21,087 per theater average.
Next weekend we'll see the release of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 into 4,000+ theaters. The Hunger Games finale will be looking to top the $121.8 million opening Part 1 brought in just last year.
