Clint Eastwood’s war drama “American sniper” was expected to perform well over the box office after a limited release got impressive reviews. But well, this is not good- this is record-shattering!!
The first superhero film based on real life hero is expected to do a business of $105.2 million over the longish Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
If estimates provided by research firm Rentrak turn out to be true, this will be a record Martin Luther King Jr. weekend at the box office, with an overall projected gross of $240 million through Monday. Year-to-date, the box office is up about 3%.
It has already pulled in $90.2 million in the U.S. and Canada from Friday to Sunday and looks all set to add nearly $15 million on Monday, making it the best ever release for Clint Eastwood till date.
The movie cost Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow nearly $58 million. It is an adaptation of Chris Kyle’s autobiography by the same name. It follows the story of Kyle (Bradley Cooper), a Navy SEAL known as the most lethal sniper in American history.
After getting six Academy awards nominations on Thursday, including best motion picture and lead actor (Cooper), the movie picked up by nearly 14% on Saturday. Clint Eastwood also scored a nomination for the Directors Guild of America award for directorial achievement in a feature film.
The month of January is usually slow at the box office, but American Sniper which opened to a terrific $30.5 million response on Friday has broken the previous $17.2 million record set by Cloverfield in January 2008.
The records for biggest January weekend performance and biggest gross for a single day were both previously held by James Cameron’s Avatar ($68.5 million and $28.5 million respectively).
Clint Eastwood must be a happy man- more so because two of his last releases had got very lukewarm opening responses. The 2014 movie Jersey Boys had made only $13.3 million while the 2011 J. Edgar had opened to $11.2 million.