‘La La Land’ Surpasses $300M Box Office Milestone As Oscars Draw Near
On the last weekend before Oscar Sunday, Best Picture favorite “La La Land” is pacing to make $4.5 million domestically after blowing by the $300 million worldwide gross mark earlier this week, thanks to a Valentine’s Day opening in China.
Damien Chazelle’s $30 million musical has been a big success for Summit Entertainment, with a current worldwide haul of $340 million. That gives “La La Land” a raw return on investment of over 1000 percent, the highest of any Best Picture nominee this year.
Elsewhere on the Oscar ballot, A24’s “Moonlight” is set to make $629,000 from 455 screens, giving it an average of $1,382 per screen. Barry Jenkins’ Golden Globe-winning coming-of-age tale now has a cumulative gross of $21.4 million.
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“Hidden Figures” is still doing well for Fox in its ninth week in theaters, with an estimated $7.1 million this weekend from 2,217 locations. With $142 million domestic and $163 worldwide, it sits in a comfortable second behind “La La Land” among all Best Picture noms.
“Lion,” which recently earned its star, Dev Patel, the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor, made $4.2 million from 1,542 locations, bringing its domestic total to $36 million.
Based on the true story of an Indian boy who emigrates to Australia to be adopted, “Lion” has earned praise from political figures like Madeleine Albright and Salman Rushdie. The Weinstein Company is hoping Academy voters will take notice as immigration becomes a hot-button issue following Donald Trump’s travel ban.
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Among new releases, Lionsgate’s Mexican romantic comedy “Everybody Loves Somebody” is pulling a three-day estimate of $1 million from 333 locations. Written and directed by Catalina Aguilar Mastretta, the film follows a successful Los Angeles Latina businesswoman, who asks her co-worker to pose as her boyfriend at a family wedding in Mexico. The film has a 92 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Other new releases that have yet to release numbers include “Land of Mine,” Martin Zandvliet’s Danish war film about teenage boys in the German Army who were drafted into World War II by Hitler and forced to clear Denmark’s beaches of hundreds of mines after the fall of the Third Reich. The film is up for an Oscar next week in the Best Foreign Language film category.
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