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APEX Hollywood Shortlist: Spongebob Squeezes Sniper Out Of First

February 10, 2015  | Written by Tomas Romero

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After three weeks in the top spot box office, Warner Brothers’ unstoppable American Sniper was finally bumped to second place by a talking sponge, a loveable starfish and a villainous live-action pirate known as Burger-Beard. And though some were surprised by The Spongebob Squarepants Movie: Sponge Out of Water’s epic haul (Spongebob opened with $55M to Sniper’s $23M), anyone expecting less than the “serious aft kicking” promised by Mr. Squarepants in the film’s hilarious trailer obviously doesn’t have kids.

Another huge selling point for longtime Spongebob fans was the chance to see their favorite characters from Nickelodeon’s multi-billion dollar franchise reborn as 3-D CGI superheroes. Though the Spongebob opening trails a bit behind Warner’s The LEGO Movie, which opened with $69M this time last year, the title should do swimmingly with fans of the show and families over the next few weeks.

Also opening wide over the weekend were two new films featuring much-talked about supporting roles from current Oscar nominees. Warner Brothers and The Wachowskis’ opulent, sci-fi space opera Jupiter Ascending ($18M) features The Theory of Everything’s Eddie Redmayne as a fiendish alien prince and Universal’s much-delayed Seventh Son ($7M) features Still Alice lead Julianne Moore as a vengeful witch in a metal dress.

And though social media has been abuzz with chatter about the so-called “Norbit effect” -named for the Eddie Murphy comedy Norbit  (2007) which was released during the heat of Oscar voting and may or may not have cost Murphy the Best Supporting Actor prize for Dreamgirls – the chances of it impacting Redmayne and Moore’s shot an Oscar is unlikely, especially given the fact that both actors took home British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAS) over the weekend.

In other BAFTA news, Boyhood’s Patricia Arquette and Whiplash’s J.K. Simmons continued to dominate their categories with expected supporting wins and Boyhood writer/director Richard Linklater took home BAFTAS for Best Director and Best Film.

And just to make things interesting, the Director’s Guild of America awarded it’s top prize to Birdman writer/director Alejandro González Iñárritu. Having now won the top award from three of the four major Hollywood guilds (a rare feat accomplished only a handful of times by films like Chicago, Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, and Argo – all of which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture) Birdman is officially the movie to beat on Oscar night. Unless Kanye West storms the stage again, then, all bets are off.

Despite being snubbed by the academy, Selma won big at the 46th Annual NAACP Image Awards this Friday, taking home Outstanding Motion Picture, Outstanding Actor in a Motion Drama (David Oyelowo), Outstanding Supporting Actor in a major picture (Common) and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture (Carmen Ejogo). 

Complete Box Office Results – February 6-8, 2015