Box Office: Clint Eastwood's 'American Sniper' Scores Record-Breaking $30M Friday

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Forbes:

Scott Mendelson

1/17/15

 

This piece will be dealing solely with American Sniper and its stunning $30.5 million opening day, with the rest of the Friday box office news to be found here.

 

Going into yesterday, the biggest opening weekend for a movie Clint Eastwood directed and/or starred in is Gran Torino, which opened in wide release in January 2009 with $29.5 million. The biggest January debut weekend was Ride Along, which earned $41m over the Fri-Sun frame of its $48m Fri-Mon MLK weekend last year. The biggest opening day in January was Cloverfield‘s $17.16m Friday as part of its (at the time) record-breaking $40m debut frame in 2008. The biggest single day was Avatar‘s $25.8m on January 2nd during its third weekend of release back in 2010. The biggest R-rated openings of all-time are Hannibal ($58m), 300 ($70m), The Passion of the Christ ($83m Fri-Sun during its $125m Wed-Sun bow) The Hangover part II ($85m Fri-Sun during its $135m Thurs-Mon bow), and The Matrix Reloaded ($91m Fri-Sun during its $134m Thurs-Sun bow). Unless I’m forgetting one, the biggest non-comic book, non-fantasy/sci-fi action movie debuts are Fast & Furious 6 ($97.3m), Skyfall ($88.3m), Fast Five ($86.1m), Fast & Furious ($70.9m), Quantum of Solace ($67m), The Bourne Ultimatum ($69m), and Mission: Impossible II ($57.8m). If you want to include Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and its $100m Fri-Sun portion of its $150m Thurs-Mon debut, knock yourself out.

 

All of this is to give you some context when I tell you that Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper earned $30.5 million yesterday, including $5.3m in Thursday previews (a record for an R-rated drama), and looks to be on its way to around $75m over the Fri-Sun portion of its (potentially) $90m Fri-Mon Martin Luther King Day weekend debut. Truth be told, if it pulls a 3.3x weekend multiplier (similar to Ride Along), it gets to $102m by Monday, but I’m reluctant to presume as much offhand and I cannot rule out the possibility of massive front loading. The Bradley Cooper vehicle went wide this weekend after scorching four-theater per-screen-averages of over $100k p.s.a. for three weekends of limited release starting on Christmas Day. If you count American Sniper as a straight drama, it’s the biggest opening day for such ever. If you count it as an action film, it’s still the ninth-biggest opening day for a non-sequel ever. It earned six Oscar nominations on Thursday, including Best Picture and a Best Actor nod for Bradley Cooper. The Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. release even made it seem like even more of an event via asking IMAX to do a lightning-quick conversion for yesterday’s wide release. For the record, I, along with $3.112m worth of moviegoers, saw the film in IMAX yesterday and it looked superb. But we’ll discuss that after all the dust has settle. But yes, if you have a nearby IMAX and want to see American Sniper, I recommend spending the extra few bucks.

 

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John Nolte ‏@NolteNC

 

In 1 day AMERICAN SNIPER made 5x the total domestic take of the anti-troop IN THE VALLEY ELAH - http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=inthevalleyofelah.htm …

 

8:24 AM - 17 Jan 2015

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'American Sniper' Breaks Box Office Records After Oscar Nominations

 

 

NEW YORK — Oscar-nominated "American Sniper" led North American box office charts over the weekend with a record-smashing $90.2 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates.

 

The film, which broke the record for a January weekend as well as for any drama opening ever, was directed by Clint Eastwood and stars Bradley Cooper.

 

"American Sniper" virtually doubled industry expectations after widely expanding to some 3,500 screens from just a handful of theaters the day after scoring six Oscar nominations, including best picture and best actor for Cooper, who plays a Navy Seal sharpshooter.

 

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Meanwhile our tolerant open minded friends

 

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