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APEX Hollywood Shortlist: American Sniper Has Oscar and B.O. Gold in it’s Sights on Record Opening Weekend

January 20, 2015  | Written by Tomas Romero

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Some say it’s the Oscar effect. Others credit director/producer Clint Eastwood’s loyal following with film fans. And still others say it’s that killer trailer featuring Bradley Cooper’s emotional phone call home to his onscreen wife (Sienna Miller) from the heat of battle. But whatever it was that had audiences lining up to see American Sniper (Warner Bros.) over the four-day holiday weekend, it worked.

Opening with a bang (literally, that first scene is a doozy!) American Sniper made history by becoming the highest grossing January release ever with an estimated haul of $105.3M for the four day frame. Since opening with an Oscar-qualifying limited release in December, Sniper has taken in an estimated $108.7M domestically, making it not only the biggest January release in Hollywood history, but the highest grossing winter release ever and the second-highest grossing R-rated opening (behind 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded, also from Warner Bros.) of all time.

And with a whopping six Oscar nominations (including Best Picture, Screenplay and a Best Actor nod for Cooper) to boot, Sniper is definitely having a moment.

Other films opening big over the United State’s MLK holiday weekend were The Weinstein Company/Dimension’s Paddington which took the second spot at the B.O. with an estimated $25.2M, and the Kevin Hart comedy The Wedding Ringer (Screen Gems) which took third place with $24.5M.

Also basking in the golden glow of Thursday’s Academy Award nominations, with sizable bumps in attendance, were Sniper’s fellow Best Picture nominees: Paramount Picture’s Selma ($11.5M), The Weinstein Company’s The Imitation Game ($8M), Fox Searchlight’s Birdman ($1.8M), Focus Feature’s The Theory of Everything ($1.1M), Sony Pictures Classics’ Whiplash ($442K) and IFC’s Boyhood which added another $286K to its $24.6M lifetime gross in its 28th week in theatres.

Not to be outdone, Fox Searchlight, who led all studios in Oscar nominations on Thursday with 20 nods, is checking back into Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (the only Best Picture nominee not currently playing in theatres) with a limited theatrical re-release this week as well. So, now you really have no excuse for not seeing all eight Best Picture nominees on the big screen.