Ron Howard isn’t normally an opening act, but it felt like that Friday as the Oscar-winning director’s nautical epic “Into the Heart of the Sea” debuted No. 1 at the North American box office with $3.8 million.
That isn’t much of a splash and projects to a roughly $12 million debut for the Warner Bros. adventure tale. Starring Chris Hemsworth, it’s based on the story of the whaling ship Essex, which inspired Herman Melville’s classic novel “Moby Dick.”
The arrival of the Big Kahuna — Disney and Lucasfilm’s hugely anticipated “Star War: The Force Awakens” — had to be on moviegoers’ minds. Even three-time defending champ “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2” will barely make a ripple this weekend, though it could cop the top spot by Sunday. Lionsgate’s Jennifer Lawrence blockbuster was second with $3.3 million Friday and is looking at an equally meager total in the low-teen millions for the three days.
The soft opening of the “In the Heart of the Sea” marks the third misfire of a film with a production budget of $100 million or more this year for Warner Bros. It will be the worst opening ever of a film in more than 3,000 theaters for director Howard, who won the 1991 Best Director Oscar for “A Beautiful Mind.” And it will be a setback for backers Village Roadshow, Imagine Entertainment, Roth Films and producers Brian Grazer, Joe Roth, Will Ward and Paula Weinstein.
But it’s likely box-office watchers will remember this weekend as simply “the one before ‘Star Wars’ opened.”
On their current pace, the top five films — Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur,” WB’s “Creed” and Universal’s “Krampus” held the next three spots — will finish the weekend with a combined total that is less than the $50 million that “The Force Awakens” has already rung up in advance sales for its opening Friday.
Bucking the down trend was Paramount’s Oscar hopeful “The Big Short.” The dark comedy about the global fiscal crisis is heading for a strong limited debut after taking in $27,741 from eight theaters on Friday, which translates to $640,000 for the three days.
That would be an $80,000 per-theater average for the film, which was directed and co-written by Adam McKay and nominated for Best Comedy Picture by the Golden Globes earlier this week. The ensemble topped by Brad Pitt, Steve Carell, Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling also won top honors from the National Board of Review and received a Screen Actors Guild nomination this week.
Despite its pedigree and price, “In the Heart of the Sea” was not foreseen as a blockbuster by Warner Bros., which shifted the release date from March to this weekend in January. That might have served as a launch pad for an awards run, but that buzz hasn’t materialized and now the studio hopes it can play steadily and find its audience as counter-programming over the next weeks at home and abroad.
First-night moviegoers in 3,108 theaters gave it “B+” CinemaScore and that won’t hurt, but so-so reviews –it’s at 44 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes — won’t help.
It’s been a tough year for perennial powerhouse Warner Bros. The costly miss with “In the Heart of the Sea” follows the big-budget flops of Andy and Lana Wachowski‘s “Jupiter Ascending” and the reboot of the kids’ classic “Pan.”
The studio still ranks No. 3 in terms of market share behind only Universal and Disney for the year, thanks to hits like “San Andreas,” “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “American Sniper.” It’s released 24 films, more than any of its rivals.