The first weekend of February at the box office chronicled a close one, $1,130,026 to be exact, between Chronicle and The Woman in Black. The two premieres fought off The Grey, Big Miracle and Underworld: Awakening to win the weekend’s #1 and #2 spots, and boosted the weekend box office of Super Bowl XLVI 31% over Super Bowl XLV with the help of the rest of the top 12. Meanwhile, Liam Neeson’s #3 The Grey, and Drew Barrymore and John Krasinki’s #4 Big Miracle shared the state of Alaska with scares and smiles to gross $9.3 million and $7.76 million, respectively.
Actors Dane DeHaan (TV’s True Blood), Alex Russell (Almost Kings) and Michael B. Jordan (TV’s Friday Night Lights) of writer-director Josh Trank’s (TV’s The Kill Point) first feature Chronicle used superpowers to succeed to #1. The found footage-style sci-fi film with a dark side grossed $22.004 million at 2,907 theaters against its $12 million production budget. It also grossed $12.8 million at the international box office. Chronicle‘s audience was much like its characters with 55% male and 61% under the age of 25.
The third reimagining and first feature of Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black frightened filmgoers, (59%) female and (57%) under the age of 25. Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Harry Potter film grossed $20.874 million domestically at 2,855 theaters and has yet to be released overseas except for in Argentina. James Watkins’ horror-thriller is the highest grossing opening for CBS Films, who has only distributed five other films including The Back-Up Plan and Beastly.
Underworld: Awakening, the only francise film at the box office, continues its fight though it fell three spots to #5. The sequel grossed $5.5 million, a 55.5% decrease from the last weekend, adding to its domestic gross of $54.233 million. The unadjusted total worldwide gross of $108.133 million is close to $3 million from overpowering 2006’s Underworld: Evolution.
Feed me at sharon@horrorhaven.com
