Available in only 331 theaters, controversial new release “The Interview” had no prayer of challenging films like “Unbroken” and “Into the Woods” for the Christmas Day box office crown.
It did, however, stand a chance of leveraging its buzz for a strong per-theater performance. It did not do so.
“The Interview” earned a mere $1.04 million at the Christmas Day box office. The fifteenth best daily gross, the sum comes courtesy an average of $3,142 in receipts per screen.
Modest for a high-profile limited release, that per-screen average also trails the marks earned by wide releases like “Unbroken” (#1 overall, $15.6 million, $4,980 per screen) and “Into the Woods” (#2, $15.1 million, $6,182 per screen). Because of the limited availability (and thus denser distribution of ticket buys), major releases of this scale are generally expected to perform better on a per-screen basis than widely distributed films.
As another point of comparison, “PK,” which is available on 272 screens (and not a new release), generated $3,952 per theater for a Christmas Day total of $1.08 million.
Sony also made “The Interview” available for streaming via numerous online channels (which resulted in the film quickly slipping onto piracy networks). Combine that reality of cannibalization with the hefty box office competition and likelihood that the film simply was not as appealing to audiences as its hacking scandal was to media outlets, and you have justification for the film’s failure to impress at the box office.
Data on the revenue acquired from streaming channels has not yet been revealed.
