All right, my partner and I pretty split on The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies. He, claiming The Silmarillion as his favorite book of all time, thinks that The Hobbit movies are overly bloated to the point of watering down the content of the actual book. I, having never read any of the books, can recognize the faults in the movie (the CGI is serving Final Fantasy Cut Scene realness) but am otherwise entertained enough to give it a pass. I say all this because the movie made $56.2 Million this weekend according to BoxOfficeMojo, which pretty much renders this discussion moot.
Night At The Museum: Secret of the Tomb, the other trilogy closer released in theaters this weekend, pretty much got roundly beaten, taking second with a $17.3 Million haul. Shockingly, a TV trailer featuring a monkey peeing on Owen Wilson wasn’t quite the draw they thought it would be.
Annie was pretty close behind Museum, with a $16.3 Million payday. However, when you realize that it was released in fewer theaters with a budget nearly half that of Museum, it might have edged out its closest competition for the spiritual win here.
I’m guessing everyone must still be a little weirded out by the fact that all the Egyptians are played by white people in Exodus: Gods and Kings, because it limped through another weekend with $8 Million to its name. Actually, one other thing I find weird about this: Why would they release a movie about Passover almost four months early? I’m just saying, it would make way more sense releasing a movie about a holy day on or around that holy day. But then again … maybe they didn’t make the best choices with this movie.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 may have a bit of a clunky name, but it’s still one of the few movies that’s actually doing well for itself in the domestic box office. It’s already doubled its budget, but f*ck it, have another $7.7 Million.
Jeremy Feist is an (ahem) entertainer from Toronto, Canada. He writes, acts, and performs on stage, and has been a writer for Popbytes for almost three years now. He lives in Toronto with his boyfriend, his incredibly dumb but cute puppy, and his immortal cat.
