American Sniper is on track to make $400 at the box office, or thereabouts, making it the highest grossing war film of all time. There are many reasons for this – it isn’t just one thing (Christians, right wingers) – it’s lots of things (critics, Oscar nominations, Eastwood, Bradley Cooper’s charm). It’s a perfect storm to make lots and lots of money – it towers over its competition. But the six out eight Oscar movies on the top 20 are not doing too badly for themselves either. Check out Boxofficemojo‘s chart below:
![2025 Oscars: Can a Late-Breaker Still Win Best Picture? [POLL]](https://www.awardsdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/gladiator-350x250.jpg)
The only aspects of American Sniper I can really get behind are the sensitive, novel portrayal of PTSD and the excellence Eastwood displays at staging action sequences. He is a consummate craftsman through and through, and Cooper teams with him to deliver an interesting spin on the “coming home” narrative. Never mind that Eastwood already covered this ground in Flags Of Our Fathers. The reason it is novel in this film is precisely because of the particular subject Eastwood has chosen to focus on. Kyle is resolute in his belief that he did the right thing at war, and has no remorse whatsoever. So when trauma creeps up on him, he can’t even fully understand the effect all the killing he did has had on him. Thus guilt becomes a kind of specter, an outside force that complicates his own personal truth and haunts him without ever providing some kind of moment of realization or catharsis.
I saw this movie around early December at a SAG screening and the first thing I said walking out of it was that I appreciated the fact that the right got their own well made Oscar bait-y movie to be proud of (proud of it in terms of being a prestige film with high production value and A-list talent attached). I like a level playing field in terms of discourse, and films about the Iraq War up to this point have by and large propped up and supported the conservative claim that all Hollywood does is push a liberal agenda. Now that is basically an impossible claim to make.
That doesn’t mean I can’t disagree with the sentiments contained in the film. American Sniper pretty much does not at all address the criticism of said war, nor does it present any sympathetic, normal Iraqis and in fact portrays virtually every single middle easterner in the film as some kind of savage villain. Even the “nice” guy who invites them to his dinner table is hiding a massive cache of weaponry under his bed. Most think pieces about the film have focused on Chris Kyle’s sentiments and beliefs which are presented in the film without comment, and the defense against those think pieces say that there’s nothing wrong with Eastwood presenting the character as-is, without judgement. That’s true. Sniper is a character study and a good filmmaker will try to understand his/her characters by getting inside their thought process. I was more troubled by the lack of alternative viewpoints in the film, which absolutely must have been present virtually all around Kyle constantly based on testimony from countless other men and women who served, and especially the unfortunate choice to present every single Iraqi as a faceless bad guy with dubious motivations. Even the children are wielding bombs and trying to kill Americans. Not saying there weren’t bad people of all shapes and sizes in that area at that time. I’m saying if all you knew of the war was what you saw in American Sniper, you’d probably end up thinking just like that crazy fucking lady on Fox News who recently said we need to wipe that entire part of the world off the face of the earth.
@ Kai.
That’s not going to happen. I mean look at what 2015 has in store. The Avengers 2, Jurassic World, Furious 7, and let’s not forget the juggernaut that is going to be Star Wars. There’s still plenty more big ones coming out but I think those will usurp American Sniper. It’s astonoshing how much it made in January that’s forsure but it’s box office total will be overthrown. I do agree it’d be awesome for an R film to be no.1 total BO but not American Sniper. It was just decent.
All I have to say about this Conservatives vs. Liberals thing on this message board is that it makes me glad to be centrist. Best thing about being one is I don’t have to make a wingnut of myself!
I’ll repeat what I wrote in Ryan’s blog on Friday:
I think it’s a good thing since it can stimulate ratings for this year’s Oscars. Back when the eight nominees were announced, I was a bit concerned since none of the eight had made even $60 million by nomination day. If only I waited until the weekend. Nevertheless one person did put it best when Gone Girl wasn’t nominated for Best Picture and said: “It looks like the Academy is looking for less ratings this year.” I almost felt like agreeing. I even has a friend who said he stopped liking the Oscars because it’s ‘less and less Hollywood every year.’ With the gross of American Sniper, I’ve become less worried.
As liberals, we are supposed to be the more intelligent ones.. we are supposed to be fair. Yet, all these comments about American Sniper make me sick. Your comments prove that we are not much better than the Conservatives who constantly bash every move that Liberals make. It is not fully a one-dimensional propaganda film the way some of you idiots make it out to be. It had some anti-war sentiments, and it somewhat successfully depicted the effects of war on veterans. No, it is far from a great film, and should not have been nominated for Best Picture. But the film is really not as one-sided as you guys are saying.
Everyone loves to complain that there’s no Adult entertainment in movie theaters these days. Clint Eastwood makes a war film that shockingly proves films for adults can be popular and instead of discussing the cinematic opportunities this could provide all anyone wants to do is shit on it.
Sounds a lot like the reaction to Interstellar doesn’t it? People complain about lack or originality and intelligence in films these days and yet when Chris Nolan attempts to buck trends and make original thought provoking films many of these same people just shit on them…
If you go to Interstellar and don’t feel real, human sadness, sorry, but you may be a cynic. In fact, those words strike me as a good summation of the critical response.
“I’m not sure why everyone is being so hard on it,” said Professor Kaiser. “If scientists are going to bash movies like this, all we’re ever going to get is The Hulk 17.”
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/do-you-believe-in-ghosts – an excellent read btw
As a bed-wetting liberal myself, I have no intention of seeing anything Clint Eastwood puts out.,
smh
@Madprofessah, congratulations on writing a most immature and gross comment that says a lot about you. I don’t share the same politics with Clint, and I thought his empty chair republican speech thing was hilarious. But I very much enjoy most of his work since I was since I was a kid.
The 28% drop is after an inflated holiday weekend which makes the hold even more impressive. I’m confident the film will pass Mockingjay for top grosser of 2014. The Superbowl next Sunday is probably the only thing that will slow American Sniper at all. As next weeks openers don’t look very appealing. American Sniper will remain #1 until “50 Shades of Grey” arrives on Valentine’s day weekend.
A 28% 2nd week drop off is incredibly impressive. The usual rule of thumb is that you can multiply the first weekend’s gross by 3 to get the final gross but that is for superhero flicks that have 50% drop offs. I think $400m is probably overstating American Snper‘s final gross, but I am fairly confident it will outgross Mockinjay Part 1 the current 2014 box-office champ at $334m. which is a pretty astonishing result. (If it does sweep up at the Oscars that could definitely give it the bump it needs to reach $400m).
As a bed-wetting liberal myself, I have no intention of seeing anything Clint Eastwood puts out., especially after his 2012 GOP Convention performance. But I can still give the man his props for making a movie that dominates the box-office, especially at his age!
I know, I know. I took it too far with the D’Souza reference. Couldn’t help myself. 🙂
Being a bit of a contrarian (my curse), I would say that I can envision a pretty dire set of by-products that come with the massive success of Sniper. It really depends on what lesson Hollywood thinks it is learning by this kind of success. If they think the answer is to then double down on pandering to the Fox News crowd then we may be in for a pretty depressing slate of shouty, rah-rah patriotic movies 2 years from now. It seems less likely to me that their knee jerk reaction will be: “Americans want to see thoughtful, adult oriented films that don’t have to cost all that much.” Instead, it could be “Man, middle America is underserved! We should get a meeting with this Dinesh D’Souza fella!”
Ben Zuk,
That’s a perfectly valid and insightful point about the implications moving forward. Already with 200 million in the bank, there’s already a conversation about that to be had even if the movie drops off the face of the earth tomorrow. I wasn’t even trying to shit on Sniper with my guesswork. I honestly just have the movie pegged as some kind of heartland flavor of the month that will reach its (obviously huge) target market and then start to drop off quickly. I’m prepared to be 100% wrong about that and it would be fine if I was. American Sniper being the highest grossing movie of 2014 would be a better outcome than the 2 hour trailer for Mockingjay Part 2 taking the top spot, honestly. And when’s the last time a director in his mid 80s sat atop the yearly box office chart, with a hard-R film nonetheless? I have issues with the movie, yes, but my guess about the drop off in box office was actually me attempting to be objective and honestly predict something.
Gravity grossed almost $300 millions last year. Maybe adults dig genre?
This movie was so good! I love Bradley Cooper. What a character study indeed!
@Chris Price-
I mean if it was extremely front-loaded we would’ve seen evidence of that by now. It only dipped 28% from weekend to weekend. That would indicate good word of mouth and steady holds in the coming weeks. It has a shot of becoming the highest grossing film of 2014 (even though technically it made 99% of its money in 2015). I don’t see how that’s a bad thing at all.
Everyone loves to complain that there’s no Adult entertainment in movie theaters these days. Clint Eastwood makes a war film that shockingly proves films for adults can be popular and instead of discussing the cinematic opportunities this could provide all anyone wants to do is shit on it. Maybe it’s time to put aside individual opinions about American Sniper (which are all perfectly valid) and discuss what its success means for the future of filmmaking.
I think the real story here is that Mortdecai earned $4.1 million. 😉
It would be great to see a Rated R movie win the year. I’m rooting for it.
Imitation Game is a good bet for 100 million right now if it continues these kind of holds and can retain the theaters. American Sniper will top out with no more than 300 million. It’s going to be extremely front loaded and I predict its gravy train comes to a halt just in time for Valentine’s Day.
The release of Imitation Game has been very smart. I’m surprised by how much it’s made. Maybe it will even hit 100 million with good word of mouth.
Word, Koles.
More FYC posters, please!!(
Those damn Christians, right wingers and their damn box office money. Who needs them? Can’t they just take a hint and stay quiet in their homes until they die? I mean seriously.
I couldn’t wait for American Sniper to end. I found it not only highly offensive propaganda but entirely boring. I kept checking my watch and thinking that the actual story had to start soon but for me, it never did. I don’t understand at all how this film in so popular, yet as I’m not American, I’m clearly not the target audience.
Hope American Sniper gets one of those Sound Oscars come Feb. 22 at least.
The success of American Sniper, despite predictable, is beyond sad.