Monday Mixer: More 'X-Files' in the works?

Posted Monday, January 19, 2015 at 2:45 PM Central

by John Couture

Is this winter?

A rare "warming" trend in the middle of winter was greeted by a throng of people who left the comfortable confines of their enclosures to bask in the warm weather. Then they caught sight of the bright orb in the sky and immediately took shelter in their nearest movie theater until sundown.

Well, that's what today's box office numbers would have you think anyhow. We'll discuss them in greater detail below, but why bury the lead, it was quite the impressive weekend at your local megaplexes. Perhaps, it was the one-two punch of getting Golden Globe results and Oscar nominations in the same week or just the extra disposable income from plummeting gas prices, whatever the reason the 2015 got a tremendous shot in the arm this weekend.

Enough with the small talk, let's get to it, shall we?

Box Office 411

For the last month, the talk around American Sniper was primarily negative. The main source of that negativity was the damning result of zero Golden Globe nominations. None. Zilch. Nada.

For an awards-contending film, such a snub could be considered a fatal blow. Less than a week after the Golden Globes handed out their trinkets, American Sniper got the last laugh. Their first laugh came with the Oscar nominations on Thursday which validated the film with six nominations, including Best Actor for Bradley Cooper and Best Picture.

The last, and most certainly the hardiest, laugh came in the form of a $90 million opening at the box office. When today's holiday earnings are added in, it's expected that American Sniper will easily surpass $100 million in its initial weekend of release.

Needless to say, those numbers are huge. For January, that type of business is literally unheard of. American Sniper set the January box office release record by doubling the previous best January opening, set last year with Ride Along. Don't cry too much for Kevin Hart, he's doing OK, but we'll get there in due time.

To say that the weekend was a complete success for American Sniper might be a bit premature. There was a bit of a controversy surrounding the film when several moviegoers took to social media to express some rather extreme views. While others criticized director Clint Eastwood for glamorizing a killer with a spotty record.

I tend to stand on the side of freedom of speech and art and think that these grumblings are being blown out of proportion for an agenda. The bottom line is that people spent their hard-earned money to go see this film in droves, that says all that I need to know about it.

The real interesting thing for me is to try and get behind the reason for this unexpected success. Were people simply itching to get out and have a night on the town or where they swayed by the film's Oscar nominations? Did falling gas prices play a part in the decision to go see a film at the theater? These are all interesting questions and sadly, hard to answer with any sort of concreteness.

Way down in second place, another new film debuted when Kevin Hart's The Wedding Ringer took in $21 million this weekend. This is Sony and Hart's fourth consecutive film to open in excess of $20 million and it's also the largest opening in January for an R-rated comedy.

Looking ahead, I think that word of mouth will propel American Sniper to about $250 million which will be a nice late addition to 2014's coffers. On the flip side, I think that The Wedding Ringer will drop off precipitously. Despite its solid start, I think it will struggle to reach the $75 million plateau.

Family film Paddington opened admirably in third place with $19.3 million, while Michael Mann's latest Blackhat bombed in 10th place with $4 million. In fact Blackhat's performance is so bad that it's the 13th worst opening ever for films opening wide between 2500 and 3,000 screens. I guess people can't handle Thor as a computer hacker.

This does bring up a conversation point though as to the financial viability of Marvel stars outside of the Marvel umbrella. But, we'll tackle that one another day.

Last week's top dog Taken 3 dropped off immensely to fourth place with $14 million. At this rate, I'm beginning to sweat whether it will actually have enough legs to reach the $100 million plateau. I'm still holding the faith that it will be our first $100 million film of the year, but it just might take a couple of extra weeks to get there. As it stands, I think it will make it $105 million when it's all said and done.

Quick Hitters

• If you're a fan of The X-Files (and really you are or you should be), then you'll get a kick out of this news. It seems that Fox is in serious considerations to get the band back together. I don't know what that means exactly, but if it means more Mulder and Scully, then yes please!
• Amazon is joining Netflix in the incredibly lucrative (?) game of producing theatrical films. As opposed to their original "TV content" that debuts on their respective online streaming services, these theatrical films will actually debut in theaters before hitting their online feeds 8-12 weeks later.

  Naturally, theater owners aren't happy about the incredibly small windows and call me skeptical, but I find it hard to make a truly commercially-accepted film when it won't be available to something like 85% of the total audience. But, time will tell.

I know, after last week, this is a letdown. Don't blame me, blame Hollywood. Until next time, Mix Well!