'Sniper' hit target with savvy release, broad appeal

American Sniper hit a box-office bull's-eye in its first weekend of wide release, but its staggering success was no shot in the dark.

Clint Eastwood's R-rated Iraq War drama blasted off with $107 million, according to final figures reported Tuesday — surpassing the $68 million take of Avatar in 2010 as the highest January opening of all time. It also marked the third consecutive year that a modern war film has topped the box office in mid-January after a limited December release.

In 2013, Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, which tracked the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, went No. 1 at the box office when it expanded nationwide, earning $24.4 million, according to Box Office Mojo. Last year, Mark Wahlberg vehicle Lone Survivor dominated in its national release with $37.8 million. Both were Academy Award-nominated, and like Sniper, were based on real people and events.

Factor in other winter releases such as Black Hawk Down, which expanded to $28.6 million in January 2002, and Act of Valor, which started with $24.5 million in February 2012, and the genre's proven success in the early part of the year is no fluke.

"There's certainly something after the holidays, where all this good will toward men, it has to go somewhere, right?" says Jeff Bock, senior box-office analyst for Exhibitor Relations. "You think about people being very sensitive to causes and in touch with their emotions, and if Hollywood can make money off that, they certainly will."

It's unquestionably strategic planning on the part of studios, which have already released the vast majority of their awards contenders and holiday blockbusters in November and December, and are left with very little competition for new releases in the first part of the year.

"When you have a good product that maybe doesn't have the bells and whistles to beat other winter tent-poles, then you wait a few weeks until mid-January and you go nationwide," says Gitesh Pandya, editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com. "You have more of a clear path to reach the audience because the other films have burned out."

But what worked in Sniper's favor is that it played well across demographics, including conservative viewers enticed by the film's patriotic message and the underserved faith-based audience drawn to the late Chris Kyle: a morally conflicted Christian who spelled out his priorities as "God, country, family" in his autobiography. With an A-list leading man in Bradley Cooper, as well as six Oscar nominations (including best picture and actor), awards-season enthusiasts and general moviegoers alike sought the film out, awarding it a rare A-plus grade in exit polls, according to CinemaScore.

"There are people that might describe this as an anti-war film and people who would describe it as a war film, but whatever side of the aisle you sat on, you gave it an A-plus," says Dan Fellman, Warner Bros. president of domestic distribution. In marketing the film to all demographics, "we went for everybody. We went right across the board."

Following the success of Unbroken — a World War II survival drama, also based on a true story, released in December — "this is sort of the new angle, a new slant on the war genre: how it affects the individual, and people are really interested in that right now," Bock says.

In general, "Americans like to see stories about Americans succeeding," says Sean Moores, managing editor for presentation at military publication Stars and Stripes. "That's probably been a constant throughout film history, and that's probably a big factor in what brings people to the box office. This movie certainly has that."

The biggest takeaway from Sniper's success for Hollywood is that a movie that audiences want to see can make money in any season, as The Lego Movie (February) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (April) suggested last year.

"We've never seen numbers like this before. For a movie like this to open bigger than most of the summer blockbusters is astonishing," says Pandya. "An important part that we learn here is that the movie business is a 52-week business: If you put the right movie out at any time of year, audiences will come.

"For studios, they should not just be looking at summer and Christmas," he says. "They should really be programming for all 12 months of the year."