Box Office: 'Hobbit: Five Armies' Opening to Huge Numbers Overseas


Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
The final tentpole in Peter Jackson's trilogy doesn't open in the U.S. until Dec. 17
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by Pamela McClintock 12/11/2014 3:30pm PDT
Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies marched into its first 11 markets on Wednesday, coming in ahead of the previous two films in the trilogy and scoring the biggest opening-day of the year in eight of those countries, including Germany. It ranked No. 1 in all.

Germany led with an outstanding $3.2 million, including Tuesday night sneaks. It beat Transformers: Age of Extinction by 47 percent and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part 1 by 86 percent. In terms of its predecessors, Five Armies came in 66 percent ahead of last year's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and 4 percent ahead of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey two years ago.

Five Armies is beginning its international rollout ahead of its Dec. 17 launch in North America, where it's poised to become the biggest movie of the year-end holidays.

Read more Peter Jackson: Tolkien Estate Rights Prevent More Middle-Earth Films

After Germany, France followed with $2.7 million, 6 percent ahead of Smaug and 10 percent of ahead Unpexected Journey.

Among other results, Five Armies opened to $1.5 million in Sweden, $1 million in Norway — its second-biggest opening of all time after the final Harry Potter film — $638,000 in Holland and $499,000 in Finland.

In New Zealand, Jackson's home country and where the movies were shot, Five Armies is off to a roaring start, earning $141,000 in Thursday midnight runs.

By this weekend, the movie will be playing in a total of 37 foreign markets, in addition to North America.

Foreign: $26,600,000 100.0%
= Worldwide: $26,600,000

‘Hobbit’ Plants $26.6M Two-Day Footprint On International Box Office http://t.co/AH47rWtXzp via @deadline Incredible support, thank you.

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $90,627,000 25.5%
+ Foreign: $265,000,000 74.5%
= Worldwide: $355,627,000
Domestic Summary
Opening Weekend: $56,220,000
(#1 rank, 3,875 theaters, $14,508 average)
% of Total Gross: 62.0%
> View All Weekends
Widest Release: 3,875 theaters
In Release: 5 days / 0.7 weeks

It continued to perform well in Germany with $11.7 million, France with $6.9 million and the United Kingdom with $6.6 million, among other territories.

Günstiger ist der Kinobesuch in England eher nicht: im Londoner Vue-Cinema im Westfield Shopping Center kostet 3D z.B. £15,25, die VIP-Tickets (wofür auch immer...) £17,50. Ich habe hier in Deutschland für die OV in 3D HFR jedesmal weniger bezahlt bzw. im Schnitt 15 €.

Ist doch nicht schlecht, dass D ein guter Markt zu sein scheint.

Box office report: 'The Hobbit' wins again
By Ariana Bacle on Jan 4, 2015 at 12:22PM @iambacle


The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the victor of the holiday season box office: The film has nabbed the No. 1 spot for three weekends in a row.


The Hobbit is following in the footsteps of its predecessors — both movies also spent three consecutive weeks as the box office winner — but its numbers aren’t as impressive. While An Unexpected Journey made $31.9 million its third weekend and The Desolation of Smaug $29 million, The Battle of the Five Armies made $21.9 million.

Though a third-weekend total of $21.9 million isn’t disappointing by most standards — Unbroken and Into the Woods didn’t even reach the $20 million mark in their second weekends — it does show that the appetite for The Hobbit has weakened, however slightly, over time.

Unbroken and Into the Woods, two films that opened Christmas day and spent their first weekend nearly tied at the box office, were close once again: Into the Woods took the number two spot with $19.1 million while Unbroken hovered close behind with $18.4 million — meaning both dropped by just about 40 percent.

As for new releases, horror flick The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death outperformed by earning $15.1 million, over $5 million more than expected by forecasters. The first Woman in Black also outperformed when, in 2012, it opened with $20.8 million, but the sequel wasn’t expected to do as well because of its lack of star-power and because of the presence of so many other buzzed-about options available in theaters. But these other options probably ended up working in The Woman in Black 2‘s favor. Horror fans haven’t had much to see in cinemas since Halloween time, so this sequel was probably the answer to scary-movie cravings that Into the Woods, for instance, couldn’t sate.

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, the latest family-friendly favorite, rounded out the top five with $14.5 million. The Ben Stiller film has made $137.5 million to date — enough to break even with the movie’s $127 million budget.

1. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies — $21.9 million
2. Into the Woods — $19.1 million
3. Unbroken — $18.4 million
4. The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death — $15.1 million
5. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb — $14.5 million

Although Night at the Museum and Annie opened the same weekend, the former has been a step ahead of the musical remake since day one: Annie took the No. 6 spot with $11.4 million this weekend.

As for smaller releases, the Clint Eastwood-directed Bradley Cooper film American Sniper brought in a stunning $640,000 in its second weekend from only four locations. Crime drama A Most Violent Year also played in just four locations, but made a less eye-opening $188,000 debut.

"Hobbit"-Film füllt weiter die Kinos

"Der Hobbit 3: Die Schlacht der fünf Heere" spielte an seinem dritten Wochenende in US- und kanadischen Kinos weitere 21,9 Mio. Dollar ein.

05.01.2015 | 08:15 | (DiePresse.com)

Peter Jacksons jüngster "Hobbit"-Film, das Disney-Musical "Into the Woods" und Angelina Jolies Kriegsdrama "Unbroken" haben erneut für volle Kinos in den USA und Kanada gesorgt, wie das Branchenportal "Box Office Mojo" am Sonntag mitteilte. "Der Hobbit 3: Die Schlacht der fünf Heere" spielte an seinem dritten Wochenende in US- und kanadischen Kinos weitere 21,9 Mio. Dollar (17,4 Mio. Euro) ein.

Damit sicherte er sich erneut den Spitzenplatz der Charts und kann nunmehr auf Einnahmen von 220,8 Millionen Dollar allein in Nordamerika verweisen. Das Horrorspektakel "Die Frau in Schwarz 2 - Engel des Todes" landete an seinem ersten Wochenende auf Platz vier der Charts, gefolgt von der Komödie "Nachts im Museum 3: Das geheimnisvolle Grabmal".

'The Hobbit' opened to $49.5 million in China this weekend. New overseas total: $617 million. http://t.co/JnBQk0eyzN http://t.co/26pzP5VRiT

Around-the-World Roundup: 'Hobbit finale invades China, passes $600 million overseas... http://t.co/6o2bw5WH2D http://t.co/wjDu2XkIGf

'The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies' has now earned $866 million worldwide: http://t.co/RerHxQ0Oae http://t.co/A4VC2jEyrw

YEAR OF THE DRAGON
The Third Hobbit Film Just Set a Surprising Box Office Record

There are many ways in which Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy is dwarfed by its predecessor, The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit’s padded plot didn’t sit favorably with fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, and the final installment didn’t achieve the kind of awards season dominance (or even presence) as Return of the King. And even though it did pretty well domestically, the Hobbit trilogy didn’t end up being quite the box office titan Lord of the Rings was back in the pre-Marvel era of 2003. That is, until today. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies premiered in China this weekend to a record-breaking $49.5 million, bringing its worldwide revenue to $866.5 million. Even greedy Smaug might be happy with that.

As we’ve seen more and more, it’s these global numbers, and, particularly, these Chinese numbers, that matter when it comes to the Hollywood blockbuster. China very recently overtook the U.S. as the world’s largest economy and tinseltown, driven, as ever, by tinsel, is in hot pursuit of the lucrative yen. According to some estimates, China’s box office could exceed North America’s by the end of the decade.

What does that mean for the future of big-budget filmmaking? It might mean more emphasis than ever before on visual spectacles that defy language barrier. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies certainly qualifies there. It might mean catering directly to Chinese culture as with Transformers 4 which, among other things, was partially cast by via a Chinese reality show.

But while amping up the spectacle and casting a wider cultural net both seem like pretty harmless moves, catering to an international audience may have a more negative effect, especially when it comes to diversity. Marvel actor Anthony Mackie recently spoke to this point saying a lack of diversity in American films makes sense to him because, “they’re not making movies for us anymore.” Meaning American values (whatever they may be) aren’t necessarily the driving force behind big-budget films these days. The best example of that this weekend? In China, not even America’s most popular sniper could take down a dragon.

#RichardArmitage is going to be big in China! http://t.co/R7s8dIiWLi

Well deserved @RCArmitage!

The @RCArmitage star is definitely rising high in that case @yll2015