| Advertisement |
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- The epic In the Heart of the Sea couldn't steal a weekend victory and looks like a major box office bomb. Ron Howard's seafaring epic cost $100 million to make, but opened with only $11 million and so-so reviews, and finished second to Hunger Games: Mockingjay 2 and the weekend box office. If foreign markets don't rescue the film, Heart will be the third financial flop in a row for the Oscar-winning director.
Advertisement
The film about the real-life story that inspired Moby Dick opened in over 3,000 theaters in the U.S., but didn't do much better in 52 foreign markets where it grabbed a total of $39.4 million. It won't open in England until Dec. 26 and on Jan. 16 in Japan.
It won't get better for the film next week when Star Wars: The Force Awakens is expected to open to box office records.
Last week, Howard got his second star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, yet the director is suffering through something of a slump with his two previous films, Rush and The Dilemma both flopping.
The family film The Good Dinosaur was third, the Rocky off-shoot Creed continues to do well at fourth, Christmas comedy-horror film Krampus was fifth, the latest James Bond movie Spectre was sixth, and rounding out the Top Ten was holiday comedy The Night Before, the animated film The Peanuts Movie, the true-life journalism drama Spotlight and romantic drama-comedy Brooklyn.
