‘American Sniper’ Shatters Records with $105 Million Weekend

From Deadline Hollywood:

Warner Bros. is reporting that  American Sniper is set to post a FSS of $90.2M with a cume to date of $93.6M.  By tomorrow with the MLK holiday, the Village Roadshow co-prod cume is looking to post a four-day of $105.2M and an overall cume of $108.6M. Unheard of for any wide release at this time of year. What record didn’t American Sniper break? Among three-day bows, it’s the best posted by a January or February release, beating Passion of the Christ‘s (which opened on a Wednesday) FSS of $83.8M.  It’s the largest January weekend ever, beating Avatar‘s $68.5M during it third sesh (Jan. 1-3, 2010) and it’s looking to be the largest R-rated four-day ever, beating 2011’s The Hangover 2, which made $103.4M. A+ CinemaScore across the board among males, females and over/under 25.  Everyone always knew the film was going to be the highest opening for an MLK releasee beating last year’s opening record set by Kevin Hart’s Ride Along ($41.5M 3-day, $48.6M 4-day). Audience make-up was 57% guys/43% women with 63% over 25, and 37% under 25. American Sniper also earned the best take for an R-rated IMAX film with an estimated $11.5M over the four day, beating Fox’s Prometheus which made $9M.  American Sniper’s per theater: an amazing $25,374 over three days and $29,592 over four-days.

While the competition did well this weekend against the titan American Sniper, there were some gripes from executives that the Eastwood film shaved off some dollars from their initial projections. “It felt like we opened against a Marvel movie,” remarked one studio executive about American Sniper‘s presence in the market, “the people portrayed in American Sniper — these are real life heroes to people in the same way that Marvel characters are heroes to fanboys.  But it’s the Marvel concept for adults.”

Said Warner Bros. domestic distribution chief Dan Fellman about the success of American Sniper, “The film played from small towns to big cities, red to blue states. The story touched on so many things dear to the American public — patriotism, service to your country.  It hit that core.”

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