Smashing the all-time opening weekend record for Presidents Day weekend, the hotly anticipated erotic drama Fifty Shades of Grey opened huge collecting an estimated $81.7M over the Friday-to-Sunday portion of the long holiday session. The Universal smash averaged an eye-popping $22,400 from 3,646 theaters by pulling in fans of the best-selling sex-filled novel who had been waiting for the story to be put onto the big screen. The previous record holder for this holiday weekend was the romantic comedy Valentine’s Day with $56.3M in 2010.
It was the fifth biggest opening weekend of all time for an R-rated film and second highest overall for the month of February trailing only The Passion of the Christ’s $83.8M. It was also the top non-sequel debut in company history for Universal. The much-buzzed-about film was developed through its specialty division Focus with the studio taking over and giving it a major league push.
The record weekend began on Friday with a colossal $30.3M including $8.6M from Thursday night pre-shows starting at 8pm. Normally films of this nature with intense fan love draw the bulk of their business on opening day and then slip on Saturday. But with Valentine’s Day falling on day two, Fifty Shades actually rose 21% that day to a spectacular $36.7M. The studio is projecting a steep 60% fall Sunday to $14.7M. Pre-sales were among the best for any film in history with fans making their plans in advance for Thursday, Friday, or Saturday shows. Tickets went on sale over a month ago. Still, factor in Monday’s holiday take and the four-day gross may soar past $90M shattering the current record for this holiday frame of $63.1M by the PG-13 Valentine’s Day.
Critics were quite harsh in their reviews of Fifty Shades before it released and paying audiences were in agreement as its CinemaScore grade was a lousy C+. Given the low audience scores and intense upfront demand, look for rapid erosion in the days and weeks ahead. A last-minute IMAX version was offered tapping into those willing to pay a premium and the 85 screens are projected to contribute $2.1M over four days.
Studio data showed that opening day audiences skewed female, as expected. 68% were women while 58% were over 25. Delayed from its August 2014 release date, Universal wisely picked Valentine’s Day weekend – the one time of the year when men are most likely to submit to seeing films they actually do not want to see. The strategy worked wonders. Brilliant marketing for months paid off handsomely, especially the use of Beyonce’s music in trailers and TV spots which helped to give broad mainstream appeal.
A day and date release in most of the world delivered a stunning $158M from 58 international territories for a jaw-dropping $239.7M global debut. These are super hero numbers! Most major markets opened this weekend with Korea to come on February 26 and China having no date yet. Leading the way overseas was the U.K. with a mammoth $21.1M in three days for the ninth largest opening of all-time. Lead actor Jamie Dornan is from Northern Ireland and author E.L. James is British. Other notable launches were $15.2M over four days in Germany, $12M over five days in France, and $10.5M across four days from Russia. Produced for about $40M, a global gross north of $600M could result. The next film in the franchise is being planned for a release next year some time.
Opening to strong results in second place was the comic-inspired spy flick Kingsman: The Secret Service with an estimated $35.6M from 3,204 locations for a muscular $11,111 average. The R-rated hit opened much better than recent action offerings debuting over Presidents Day weekend including last year’s RoboCop and the previous year’s A Good Day To Die Hard which were both based on well-known brands. Those launched in the $21-25M range over Friday-to-Sunday. Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson starred in Kingsman as hero and villain, respectively.
Many action films have sputtered this year but Kingsman connected with moviegoers. Saturday even witnessed a sizable 47% surge for Valentine’s Day from audiences preferring shooting over spanking. Those polled by CinemaScore gave a decent B+ average grade while reviews were generally positive. The opening weekend performance was at the same level as Denzel Washington’s last film The Equalizer (also R) which debuted to $34.1M and not far from the $39.2M of Liam Neeson’s Taken 3. That’s great company to have.
Last week’s top choice The SpongeBob Movie took a tumble in its second frame, despite not having any new kidpics to compete with. The Paramount title fell 45% to an estimated $30.5M which was still a robust amount of business and boosted its cume up to a solid $93.7M. With Monday being a school holiday, it may cross the $100M mark then. The new toon has already beaten The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which collected a total of $85.4M in 2004.
Clint Eastwood’s runaway smash American Sniper broke the $300M mark on Sunday as it continued on its record-breaking run. Its fifth weekend of wide release saw an estimated $16.4M in grosses sliding 29% from last frame for a new North American tally of $304.1M. Sniper has now joined the list of all-time domestic blockbusters sitting at number 47 just behind Skyfall’s $304.4M. Warner Bros. has enjoyed tremendous success and news coverage in recent days about the trial of the real “American Sniper” killer has helped to keep this film on the minds of movie audiences. It is the second biggest R-rated film of all-time trailing the $370.3M of The Passion of the Christ which it will probably not beat.
Suffering the worst drop of any film in the top ten was the sci-fi bomb Jupiter Ascending which grossed an estimated $9.4M in its second weekend, falling 49%. Cume for the Warner Bros. release is just $32.6M, a weak amount for an action film costing more than $175M to produce. Seventh Son, another sophomore flop, followed with an estimated $4.2M dropping 42% giving Universal a measly $13.4M.
Kidpic Paddington did well with an estimated $4.1M, down 21%, followed by Weinstein Co. stablemate The Imitation Game with an estimated $3.5M, dipping 24%. Totals are now $62.3M and $79.7M. Kevin Hart saw his comedy The Wedding Ringer fall 28% to an estimated $3.4M giving Sony $59.7M thus far. Paramount’s Project Almanac rounded out the top ten with an estimated $2.7M, off 48%, and a $19.6M sum.
Opening very well in platform release was the award-winning vampire comedy What We Do In The Shadows with an estimated $66,000 from solo houses in New York and Los Angeles for a stellar $32,915 average. Reviews were quite strong across the board and Paladin/Unison will expand next weekend into the top ten markets.
Depending on how estimates hold and how well Monday performs, this could be a record Presidents Day weekend beating out 2010’s explosive session which saw the Top 20 gross a stunning $233.4M over four days.
The top ten films grossed an estimated $191.7M which was up 23% from last year when The LEGO Movie stayed at number one with $49.8M; and up a sizable 58% from 2013 when A Good Day To Die Hard debuted on top with $24.8M.
