TAGGED AS: Box Office, movies, news
It still does not feel like November and the holiday movie season. Some major releases are coming, but we are veering closer to Thanksgiving as the true kickoff of ye olden times. Not that it isn’t interesting to see a Christmas holiday movie (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever) battle it out with a horror movie that tears down all religions (Heretic), but the bigger story at the top is more a symbol of studios just not taking advantage of the early gaps in the month.
Venom: The Last Dance pulled off a pretty interesting feat this weekend. For the first time since 1989, a film opening in October was still No. 1 at the box office on the second weekend of November. Here was no contest for it last week, and Heretic could not quite get there this weekend. The last film to pull this off was Look Who’s Talking in 1989, and it was part of a five-week run at No. 1, finally getting dethroned by Eddie Murphy’s Harlem Nights.
Venom: The Last Dance is in its third straight week at No. 1, and it only took in $16.2 million. Its $114.8 million domestic haul in 17 days puts it between the numbers for Shark Tale and Puss in Boots, though the film is nowhere on their paths. Taken 2 is a more likely throughline, as it grossed $13.2 million in its third weekend for a total of $105.8 million in that same period. That continues to suggest the run towards $160 million that we upped its estimate to last week, after outperforming its initial estimates in weekend two. The film has reached its profit threshold for Sony, surpassing Twisters ($370.9 million) with over $394 million worldwide to enter the top 10 grossers of the year. It will soon surpass Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ($397.8 million) and Bad Boys: Ride or Die ($404.4 million) on that chart while becoming the studio’s highest grosser since last year’s Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.
Look Who’s Talking’s fifth week at No. 1 had the benefit of not being challenged, as Hollywood was still in the position of considering Thanksgiving the official beginning of the holiday season. Back to the Future Part II was the big release that year. In a small victory for Lionsgate, their release of the new adaptation of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever edged out Heretic for second place. Dallas Jenkins’ film started with $11.1 million, which is the studio’s first film to open over $5 million since Borderlands in August. They followed with a trail of The Crow, 1992, The Killer’s Game, Never Let Go, and Megalopolis. Never Let Go was the only one to even reach $10 million total. The Strangers: Chapter 1 is still the studio’s highest-grossing movie of the year domestically ($35.1 million) and worldwide ($47.8 million). Christmas Pageant’s budget was $20 million, and it will need some significant holiday word of mouth to turn that into profit by the time it leaves theaters.
Venom was thought to have had a better challenger this week in Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ Heretic. A24’s release of one of the best-reviewed films of the year began with $11 million in third place. That’s the third-highest opening among the studio’s wide launches behind Ari Aster’s Hereditary ($13.5 million), which was the tops until Civil War came along earlier this year with a $25.5 million start. Heretic’s opening is also lower than the duo’s first directorial effort, 65 ($12.3 million), last March, which finished with $32 million. Hereditary grossed over $44 million. Could word of mouth propel moviegoers to discover Heretic to get it somewhere between those? Will critic groups help propel Hugh Grant into the nomination conversation? Let’s have a little faith in both.
Fourth place goes to The Wild Robot, enjoying its seventh week in the top five. The $6.6 million it earned is only about $160,000 less of what it grossed in its fifth weekend, and it has now exceeded our $130 million projection. Chris Sanders’ film looks to be on its way to surpass $300 million worldwide. It is also the highest-grossing unconnected animated film since Coco and The Boss Baby in 2017.
Still in the top five in weekend four is Smile 2, which took a little while but is starting to behave more like the word-of-mouth success of the original, dropping just 24.5%. The solid hit for Paramount grossed $5.1 million this weekend for a domestic total of $60.5 million and over $120 million worldwide. That’s likely just enough in the tank to squeeze a trilogy out of it. A Quiet Place: Day One mopped up the losses from John Krasinski’s If, and this looks to take care of the disappointment of Transformers One. Thanks to its winners, including Bob Marley: One Love, Paramount should be on the right side of the ledger to date, with Gladiator II and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in store for the holidays.
Focus appears to have found itself some success with Edward Berger’s Conclave. The awards player with Ralph Fiennes continues to do strong business with adults, starting with a $6.6 million opening, down just 23.7% in its second weekend to $5 million and down just 19% in weekend three grossing $4.1 million. It’s 17-day total is at $21.5 million, and it will become the studio’s best of 2024 in a day or two. Just $28.5 million and it will be their highest-grossing film since Downton Abbey: A New Era back in 2022. Apart from Conclave and The Bikeriders, the studio’s soon-to-be previous high this year ($21.6 million), Focus’ five other 1,000+ screen wide releases this year have grossed $32 million and change.
Neon expanded Sean Baker’s Anora in 1,104 theaters this weekend, up from 253 theaters. It grossed $1.8 million in that count and upped to $2.52 million this week for a $2,282 per-theater average. In 2005, the Keira Knightley version of Pride & Prejudice grossed $2.11 million in 221 theaters and then jumped to over $7 million in 1,299 theaters (a $5,409 PTA). Well below the pace of that film’s $38+ million final gross, Anora is performing a little closer in tune with (though trending lower than) the expansion releases of films like It Follows, The French Dispatch, and The People vs. Larry Flynt, which finished between $14-20 million. Anora still hopes to become one of Neon’s top five grossing films to date alongside Longlegs; Parasite; I, Tonya; and Immaculate. Three of them released this year, including Baker’s film, which has grossed $7.28 million in 17 days of release and appears to have lost momentum quicker than expected. That said, it just needs $12.33 million to enter that top five.
Down to eighth place is Robert Zemeckis’ Here with a disappointing $2.43 million in its second weekend, a 50.2% drop. Personally I am hoping this is one that audiences will ultimately catch up with and give it a reevaluation. But the $50 million release from Sony is another failure in their relationship with Zemeckis over the years, going back to Used Cars in 1980 and The Walk in 2015, which opened in the wake of Airplane! and The Martian, respectively.
A24 has two films in the top 10 this week, and they have to be happy with the numbers for We Live In Time. Another $2.21 million this week brings it up to $21.8 million, the 12th highest-grossing film in their history, passing The Disaster Artist this weekend. And that was only a 36% drop, despite losing over 1,000 theaters. Rounding out the top 10, Terrifier 3 is still adding to its total with $1.47 million and a total of $53.3 million.
Searchlight’s release of Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain tripled its theater count from 4 to 12 this week and it held very well. Grossing $295,000 for a per-theater average of $24,554, the film has now grossed $613,000 in 10 days. These are not far off from their release of The Wrestler, which had PTAs of $50,679 and $21,529 in its first two weeks, the latter for its release in 18 locations. It concluded its first 10 days with $648,510 and ultimately finished with over $26 million during Mickey Rourke’s award season run. Kieran Culkin is likely to have one as well and Searchlight is opening the film much wider next week. We’ll see how it measures up and if its numbers are closer to Anora or not.
Other films opening outside the top 10 include Anthony Mackie and Morena Baccarin in Vertical’s sci-fi release, Elevation, making $1.22 million in 1,416 theaters. Crunchyroll’s anime Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom made $1.16 million in 621 venues. And Roadside’s release of Cillian Murphy in Small Things Like These grossed $585,000 in 799 theaters.
Speaking of light scheduling, next week is no exception, as the big release is Jake Kasdan’s Red One. Amazon/MGM is hoping the reported $200+ million-budgeted film will break through in a way that no original film on Dwayne Johnson’s resume to date has. In other words, a half-billion at the box office. It should knock Venom back, but will the added appeal of Chris Evans and J.K. Simmons as Santa Claus be enough to make this the same kind of global hit?
41%
81%
Venom: The Last Dance
(2024)
– $16.2 million ($114.8 million total)
90%
98%
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
(2024)
– $11.1 million ($11.1 million total)
92%
77%
Heretic
(2024)
– $11 million ($11 million total)
98%
98%
The Wild Robot
(2024)
– $6.6 million ($130.8 million total)
85%
81%
Smile 2
(2024)
– $5.1 million ($60.6 million total)
92%
85%
Conclave
(2024)
– $4.1 million ($21.5 million total)
97%
91%
Anora
(2024)
– $2.52 million ($7.2 million total)
36%
58%
Here
(2024)
– $2.43 million ($9.5 million total)
78%
83%
We Live in Time
(2024)
– $2.21 million ($21.8 million total)
77%
85%
Terrifier 3
(2024)
– $1.47 million ($53.3 million total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast.
[box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by ©Sony Pictures
