Box Office: Hidden Figures still soars at No.1; La La Land climbs to No.2

After beating Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in a photo-finish last weekend, Fox’s hit drama Hidden Figures continues to top the US box office chart with another excellent weekend for the film. In addition, Lionsgate’s La La Land continued to its hugely impressive run as it was buoyed by its seven Golden Globe wins last week. (via Box Office Mojo)

Grossing an estimated $20.4million (which could rise to $25million over the four-day Martin Luther King weekend), Hidden Figures should bring its domestic total to around $60million by the end of the long weekend. The $25million budgeted film stars Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kevin Costner, Jim Parson and Kirsten Dunst.

As for Damien Chazelle’s hit musical La La Land, it’s superb box office run continues after some stellar performances on limited release. Expanded to 1,848 theatres for the four-day weekend, the film grossed $14.5million (up 43%) and is set to top over $17million after the final weekends totals come in. It also had a big expansion on the international front, where it brought in another $17.8million which includes topping the UK box office with $7.3million (£6million) to finish No.1. Once the film expands again, reportedly following the Academy Award nominations, it could end up topping the charts with some stellar numbers.

The weekend’s highest-placed new release was horror film The Bye Bye Man which came in fifth place and looks to have benefited from its Friday the 13th release. Topping $13.38million for the three-day and $15million for the four-day (if estimates hold), it will have doubled its $7.4million budget almost immediately.

Another new release, Monster Trucks, grossed $10.5million for the three-day but has already been labelled a huge financial flop for Paramount, with the film costing $125million and consequently saw it parent company Viacom taking a whopping $115million write-down of the release.

The biggest news of the weekend was the disappointing returns of some of the big “Oscar bait” films that struggled in such a congested market-place. Patriots Day, starring Mark Wahlberg, faired the best of them in terms of numbers but its estimated $12million three-day gross was well below estimations given that it expanded to over 3,100 theatres. That said, the film has had mostly positive reviews and good word-of-mouth so it could yet have legs to keep its numbers ticking over.

Less successful were the new films from director’s Ben Affleck and Martin Scorsese, both of which had very poor weekends. Affleck’s Live By Night was the big casualty of the weekend, only managing $5.4million from 2,822 theatres and finishing well below the numbers that had been expected of it given the reported $75million budget. Overseas, where it opened in the UK, Russia and Taiwan, the film pulled in $3.3million.

Scorsese’s passion project Silence expanded to 747 theatres could only muster around $1.9million ($2.3million estimated for the four-day) and again was below expectations.

Finally, we must mention Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as after becoming 2016’s top domestic film has now passed the $500million mark, becoming only the seventh film to do so.