Steve’s Box Office Report: February 2013
Top 10 Films for the Month of February:
1. Identity Thief – $134,506,920
2. Safe Haven – $71,349,120
3. A Good Day to Die Hard – $67,349,198
4. Warm Bodies – $66,380,662
5. Escape From Planet Earth – $57,012,977
6. Snitch – $42,930,462
7. Side Effects – $32.172,757
8. Beautiful Creatures – $19,452,138
9. Dark Skies – $17,418,667
10. Bullet to the Head – $9,489,829
Honorable Mentions:
1. Stand Up Guys – $3,310,031
February Winners: Identity Thief, Safe Haven, and Warm Bodies
We head into the month of February 2013 and coming off a fairly weak January, these films were now in a bit of a tough spot to try and regain a little momentum that we still had when 2012 ended. There were quite a different number of films released this month and it also seemed like there were more YA films as opposed to romance films, and there were also a few films geared strictly towards adults and it was going to be interesting to see which films would do well. The first film from this month that makes it into this category is the road comedy film Identity Thief, a film about a man who goes on a cross-country trip to catch the woman who stole his identity. The film would receive negative reviews from critics who felt it was a weak film despite the efforts of its stars, but it would end up finishing with just over $134 million which was a major win and I will go into it more in the recap. The next film from this month that makes it into this category is the romance film Safe Haven, a film about a woman who escapes her abusive husband and moves to a town where she falls in love with a store owner. The film would receive negative reviews from critics which was par for the course for films based off Nicholas Sparks novels, and the film would finish with over $71 million which was a good showing for the film. The third and final film that makes it into this category is the romantic zombie film Warm Bodies, a film about a woman who falls in love with a zombie which causes him to become human again. The film would receive positive reviews from critics who felt it was a breath of fresh air to a genre not known for romance, and it would finish with over $66 million which was a good win for the film. While the rest of the films from this month didn’t do enough to make it into this category, the three films that did definitely performed well and helped carry the month somewhat significantly.
February Losers: A Good Day to Die Hard, Beautiful Creatures, and Bullet to the Head
Even though the films in the previous category did very well, there were a few films from this month that didn’t do well and end up being in this category. Fortunately, there were only a few films from this month that did poorly enough that made it into this category, but now the question becomes how bad these films ended up doing and if they actively hurt the month. The first film from this month that makes it into this category is the latest installment of the Die Hard series with A Good Day to Die Hard, which sees John McClane travel to Russia to save his son while being caught up in a global terrorist plot. The film would receive negative reviews from critics who felt it was easily the weakest entry in the series, and it would finish with over $67 million which was not a good showing and I will get into it more in the recap. The next film from this month that makes it into this category is the gothic fantasy film Beautiful Creatures, based on the novel of the same name of two young people who fall in love only to learn dark secrets about their families and town. The film would receive mixed reviews from critics who felt it was one of the weaker YA adaptations released, and it would finish with over $19 million which led to it being one of the bigger bombs of the years. The third and last film that makes it into this category is the action film Bullet to the Head, a film about a cop and a hitman who are forced to work together to take down a corrupt businessman. The film would receive mixed reviews from critics who felt it was a fine showcase for star Sylvester Stallone, but it would finish with over $9 million which made it one of the bigger bombs of the year. Even though there were only three films from this month that made it into this category, these three were some of the bigger losers of the year and it is not a good showing for February.
The Surprise/Story of February 2013: Comedy upends Romance as Identity Thief easily takes top spot of February 2013
As I have talked about for the last few years, February no longer seems to be a month solely dominated by romance even though this is the month of Valentine’s Day and it makes sense for romance to control the month. But as we have seen, other genres can succeed in this month and sometimes they even do better than romance films as the last few years have seen the top film of the month either not be a romance film or a hybrid of romance and another genre. In the case of this month, the top film of the month ends up being a comedy as Identity Thief has no trouble taking the top spot for the month by being the only film this month making over $100 million, and the rest of the top 5 sees two romance films along with an action film and an animated film. As a result, this month does have a step up on January which ended up being disappointing and blunting the momentum the box office had when 2012 ended, and now we will see if the year can continue to grow on this as we head into March which has some big films coming out.
Overachiever of February 2013: Identity Thief
Looking at Identity Thief, all the signs were pointing to the film being a disappointment as it was receiving negative reviews from critics who felt that it was wasting its stars, specifically Melissa McCarthy who the critics felt carried the film on her back with her performance. With the reviews it was getting, it seemed like this film would underperform and fall by the wayside especially coming out the weekend before Valentine’s Day which saw a bunch of films come out that weekend. However, the audience connected to the film and completely disagreed with the critics as they liked what they saw and came out in droves, helping propel the film to making over $134 million which was a tremendous haul for the film, especially for a February film which typically doesn’t make that much. It would be the only film from this month to cross the $100 million mark and was easily the first legit surprise hit of 2013, and as a result there is no question that this film deserves the title of overachiever of the month as we will see how it stacks up to the other overachievers of the year.
Underachiever of February 2013: A Good Day to Die Hard
Since it started back in 1988, the Die Hard franchise has been a pretty successful franchise with the first three doing extremely well when they came out when they did, and the franchise was able to get a shot in the arm when Live Free or Die Hard came out in 2007 and it became the highest grossing entry in the franchise. As a result, there seemed to be no doubt that the franchise still had plenty of legs behind it and now here in February 2013, the fifth installment of the franchise comes out with A Good Day to Die Hard and expectations were fairly high. However, given the 6 year gap between the last film and this one, it seemed like that was too big of a gap to keep fans interested and this film ends up being the lowest grossing film in the franchise which over $67 million. Coupled with the overperformance of Identity Thief and the negative reviews this film received, and it ended up being a major disappointment and showed that perhaps the franchise was in fact at the end of the line which is a shame. At the end of the day, there is no question that this film ends up being the underachiever of the month and brings the Die Hard franchise to an extremely disappointing end.
February 2013 Awards Watch: Bullet to the Head and Stand Up Guys
As we are used to seeing in these recaps, February tends to be a weak month in terms of award contenders as this is when the previous season ends and the next season begins the following month, and that trend holds up here as we only have two films from this month that make it into this category. The first film from this month that makes it into this category is Bullet to the Head which was nominated for one Golden Raspberry Award (Worst Actor) which it wouldn’t win, and the other film from this month that makes it into this category is the black comedy crime film Stand Up Guys, a film about a pair of stickup men who work together on one last mission while one of the members is tasked with killing his friend. The film would receive mixed reviews from critics and finished with just over $3 million, and it would be nominated for one Golden Globe Award (Best Original Song) which it wouldn’t win. On paper, these two films seemed like the least likely films to make it into this category, but that might just be an indictment of the month that the films that came out didn’t get any award nods.
Overall Thoughts of February 2013:
Overall, the month of February 2013 ended up being a decent month as it was clearly better than the previous month, but compared to other Februarys this one was one of the weaker ones in recent memory. For the second straight month, there was no real blockbuster that came out and with the first big one coming out in March, the fact that this month did as well as it did was actually quite commendable. We did get our first film of the year to cross the $100 million mark and most of the remaining films that came out this month did fine, but there were a few that didn’t do well and two ended up being two of the bigger bombs of the year. Coming off a very strong 2012, 2013 is not off to the greatest start with a weak January and a slightly lackluster February, but we will see if March can finally turn things around for the better and get the year on the right track. As for the month of February 2013, it ended up being a fairly average month that wasn’t great, but wasn’t terrible either.
Final Grade: C-
