'American Sniper' Is Full Steam Ahead with a Record-Breaking Second Weekend

American Sniper

American Sniper sees you saying "January movies don't do well!," and it lauuuughs and laughs. After a record-shattering opening last weekend (it made more than double what January's previous best opener, Ride Along, did), the six-time Oscar nominee pulled in $64 million this weekend, for the highest-grossing second weekend in January and the eight highest-grossing second weekend ever. It's already earned nearly $250 million worldwide and could easily make $350 million by the end of its run, which--considering its Christmas Day release--would make it 2014's highest-grossing film. Sorry, Mockingjay - Part 1. You thought you had it in the bank, and then this latecomer comes along and messes with your laurels.

The highest-grossing new release was walking disaster (or camp masterpiece--depends on whom you ask) The Boy Next Door, which made $15 million against a production budget of $4 million. The rest of the top five were holdovers Paddington (weekend gross $12.3 million, total gross $40 million), The Wedding Ringer ($11.6 million; $39.6 million) and Taken 3 ($7.6 million; $76 million).

Mortdecai

Abysmal reviews hurt Disney's Strange Magic and Lionsgate's Mortdecai, which earned only $5.5 million and $4.1 million, respectively. That's Depp's second-worst opening of the last ten years; the only movie that opened with less is a documentary he narrated that only ever played in eight theatres. Looks like Depp's 'stache won't become the next big fashion trend, after all.

The much-buzzed-about Cake opened in limited release and took in approximately $1 million in 482 theatres. Whiplash finally expanded to over 500 theatres and saw its box office more than double. So far it's earned $8.5 million, making it the lowest-grossing Best Picture nominee, not that that means much this year.

Other movies out in limited release were Black Sea ($35,000), Song One ($23,800), Mommy ($21,000), Red Army ($20,100) and The Duke of Burgundy ($13,000).