Since we're going to be digesting the 46 million turkeys we gobbled down on Thursday, we might as well do said digesting at the movies. However, even though big movies do open the day before the holiday, Thanksgiving weekend is usually won by a film that opened the weekend before. Meanwhile, the first weekend of December (the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend) is, in most years, one the deadest dead spots of the year.
One Year Ago--November 30, 2018: The top 6 movies remained the same from Thanksgiving weekend, with Ralph Breaks the Internet leading the way, followed by The Grinch, Creed II, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Instant Family. Of course, so movies held up better than others, with Ralph and Creed plunging by more than half, and Beasts falling by over 60%. As has been the case since 2014, the only new wide release is a forgettable horror title. The Possession of Hannah Grace, starring a bunch of people who played supporting parts on TV shows, was about a cop just out of rehab who becomes convinced that the victim of a botched exorcism is still possessed and committing evil acts. The handful of second-tier reviewers who saw the film mostly were unanimous in their agreement that it was awful. It opened in 7th, to $6.4 million, and would depart this world with $14.8 million. Opening in theaters specializing in Bollywood films was 2.0, a sci-fi thriller about an advanced robot who takes on the ghost of a ornithologist who protested what cell phones were doing to the avian population, and now uses the same cell phones to take his revenge. The film got good reviews from critics who reviewed these types of movies, and it did all right business in America, opening to $2.8 million. Final grosses are estimated to be $4.2 million, though the releasing studio didn't report grosses past the opening weekend.
Five Years Ago--November 28, 2014: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 dominated the Thanksgiving box office, more than doubling the gross of #2 Penguins of Madagascar. The animated spin-off of the popular Madagascar movie series sends the four penguins, who all act like they're World War II commandos on a secret mission, into a battle with an evil octopus (John Malkovich) who has plans to make penguins ugly. Benedict Cumberbatch plays an undercover wolf. It didn't get particularly good reviews from critics, who had grown tired of the parent series, and was somewhat a disappointment at the box office. Penguins took in $35.4 million over the long weekend, and would conclude its mission with $83.9 million. Below Big Hero 6 and Interstellar at #3 and #4, came the disappointing sequel Horrible Bosses 2. Jason Bateman, Jason Sudekis, and Charlie Day return from the 2011 original, attempting to be their own horrible bosses by starting their own company, only to be swindled by investor Christoph Waltz. They then team up with Waltz's disgruntled son (Chris Pine) to enact revenge by faking a kidnapping. Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Aniston, and Kevin Spacey return from the first film, as well. Critics barely liked the first one and downright hated the sequel, and audiences, who made the first one a moderate hit, didn't bother showing up for the follow-up. Horrible Bosses 2 opened to $22.8 million over the long weekend and got itself fired at $54.5 million, less than half of what the first film made. Opening in limited release was the fall's second movie about a real-life British scientific genius. The Imitation Game starred the aforementioned Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, the mathematician who figured out how to decode German secret messages during World War II. Kieria Knightly played his colleague, who he marries at least partly to cover up his homosexuality, which was still illegal at the time. The film got solid reviews, but like The Theory of Everything, got more Oscar nominations than said reviews would suggest. It ended up with 8 of them, including Picture, Actor for Cumberbatch, Supporting Actress for Knightly, and Director for Morten Tyldum. It would win for its Adapted Screenplay. It would also prove to be a major surprise mainstream hit, earning $91.1 million.
Ten Years Ago--November 27, 2009: Holdovers dominated Thanksgiving, as The Twilight Saga: New Moon, The Blind Side, and 2012 all repeated at 1-3. The best opening, at #4, was the poorly received Disney comedy Old Dogs. Robin Williams played a businessman who discovers that his ex-wife, who he was married to for only a few weeks, had twins after their divorce, which she had never told him about. Now, he has to take care of them while trying to close a major business deal. John Travolta plays his friend and partner, who agrees to help. Hijinks ensue. According to virtually every critic, the hijinks were not the least bit funny, as Dogs was universally panned. Audiences didn't like it much better, as it would open to $24.2 million over the five-day weekend, and barely double that by the end of its run, getting put to sleep with $49.5 million. After A Christmas Carol in 5th, came the extremely violent actioner Ninja Assassin. Korean pop star Rain played the aforementioned ninja assassin, who rebels against the clan that raised him and goes on the run. This was a rather odd title to release over Thanksgiving, and it did about as well as could be expected, opening to $21.2 million over the long weekend and burning out fast, earning $38.1 million. Debuting at the bottom of the Top 10, after Planet 51, Precious, and Fantastic Mr. Fox (going wide) was The Road, the bleak adaption of Cormac McCarthy's bleak Pulitzer Prize winner about a father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee, in one of his earliest movie roles) trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Critics were generally friendly to the movie, but not friendly enough to convince audiences that this was perfect Thanksgiving weekend entertainment. The Road made $2 million in limited release over Thanksgiving, and eventually topping out at $8.1 million. Arriving in limited release was The Princess and the Frog, an attempt by Disney to bring back hand-drawn animation. In 1920s New Orleans, Tiana (Anika Noni Rose), a young cook who dreams of owning her own restaurant, who gets turned into a frog thanks to a curse placed upon Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos), who has also been turned into a frog thanks to evil witch doctor Dr. Facilier (Keith Davis). Oprah Winfrey, Terrence Howard, and John Goodman also provided voices. Critics generally liked the film, which would receive three Oscar nominations, for Animated Feature and two for Song. However, Frog turned out to be a major commercial disappointment, ultimately earning only $104.4 million. Disney has stuck with computer animation since then.
Fifteen Years Ago--November 26, 2004: National Treasure repeated at #1, while The Incredibles came in at #2. Opening at #3 was the third yuletide film of the season, Christmas With the Kranks. Tim Allen, seeking a second Christmas-themed franchise, and Jamie Lee Curtis play the Kranks, who, with their daughter out of the country, decide to take Christmas off that year and go on a cruise instead. For some reason, this angers their neighbors, including Dan Ackroyd, who begin a high-pressure campaign to force the Kranks to decorate. Critics were downright cranky about Kranks, whose reviews were nearly as awful as Surviving Christmas's reviews had been a month earlier. Despite that, Kranks became a minor hit, not doing anywhere near the business of any of Allen's Santa Clause movies, but it did make $30.8 million over the Thanksgiving holiday and continued to play well to Christmas, earning $73.8 million. This, incidentally, was the last successful movie to date based on a John Grisham novel. Family films The Polar Express and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie finished 4th and 5th, ahead of wannabe epic Alexander. The Oliver Stone-directed film starred Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great, who conquered the known world by the time he was 32, then promptly dropped dead. Angelina Jolie (who is only a year older than Farrell) played his mother. Also hanging around the biopic was Val Kilmer, Anthony Hopkins, and Christopher Plummer. Being a hip, happening 2004 biopic, the film makes sure to emphasize Alexander's decidedly non-platonic relationship with his best friend, played by Jared Leto, in a way that critics felt was rather ham-fisted. Indeed, they didn't like much about Alexander, giving the film mostly negative reviews. The film didn't prove interesting to audiences either, as it ended up making the majority of its money during Thanksgiving weekend, before word-of-mouth set in. Alexander grossed $21.8 million over the five-day holiday, and would get conquered with $34.3 million. Jumping into the Top 10 for its third weekend (which means I should have written this up two weeks ago. Oops) was Finding Neverland. This fantasy biopic starred Johnny Depp as British playwright J.M. Barrie, whose friendship with a widowed mother (Kate Winslet) and her four sons inspires him to write what would be his enduring masterpiece, Peter Pan. A young Freddie Highmore played one of the boys, and Depp was so taken with his performance that he recommended him to Tim Burton for their 2005 redo of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Dustin Hoffman, who had played the title character in Steven Spielberg's Peter Pan sequel Hook, played a skeptical producer. Neverland would get decent reviews, but not really the reviews that suggested it was worthy of seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Depp, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It would win for its score. It would land in eight (right below Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason) in its first semi-wide weekend with $6.4 million, and would prove to be a solid holiday season performer, ultimately finding $51.7 million.
Twenty Years Ago--November 26, 1999: After its limited debut the weekend before, Toy Story 2 dominated Thanksgiving after going wide on Wednesday, pulling in $80.1 million over the five-day period. The World is Not Enough finished a distant second, ahead of the debut of End of Days. Somewhat of a change of pace for Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was part 1999's trend of end-of-millennium supernatural horror movies, even if it did contain considerably more gunplay than, say, The Sixth Sense or Stigmata. Schwarzenegger played an alcoholic former NYPD cop (named Jericho Cane--the screenwriter had fun naming the characters in this movie) who has to protect a young woman named Christine York (Robin Tunney) from Satan himself (Gabriel Byrne, who was also in Stigmata) and his plan to impregnate her right before midnight on New Year's Eve, thereby bringing forth the Antichrist. Critics were fairly unimpressed, and the film was not the comeback Schwarzenegger was hoping for. It would open to a solid $31.5 million over Thanksgiving, but would largely run out of steam quickly, finishing with a devilish $66.9 million. Opening outside the top 10 was the comedy-drama Flawless. Robert De Niro plays a former cop recovering from a stroke who takes singing lessons from his trans neighbor (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who is saving up for surgery. Critics weren't too impressed with the film, with what praise they did have going mostly to Hoffman, in his first lead role. Audiences didn't respond to it, either, as it opened in semi-wide release to $2 million and would sashay away with $4.5 million.
Twenty-Five Years Ago--December 2, 1994: With Thanksgiving over, the box office plunged, with even #1 The Santa Clause losing nearly half its business. The Top 6 stayed the same from the past weekend, except for Junior, which had a slightly better hold than Interview With the Vampire, flipping places, moving up to 3. Star Trek: Generations came in second, A Low Down Dirty Shame finished 5th, and The Lion King came in 6th. The weekend's only wide release could manage no better than 7th. Trapped in Paradise was a crime comedy starting Nicolas Cage, Dana Carvey, and Jon Lovitz as brothers (yes, someone thought they could pass for having the same DNA) who rob a bank on Christmas Eve in a small Pennsylvania town, only to discover that every attempt to get out of town is comically thwarted. That's OK, since the town is full of nice, sweet folks who don't realize that the three strangers who are stranded are the same three strangers who robbed the bank. Critics were uniformly negative about the film, and audiences largely ignored it, as it opened to $2.7 million and fell far short of paradise by finishing with $6 million. Opening in limited release was the biopic Tom & Viv, about the disastrous first marriage of American poet T.S. Eliot (Willem Dafoe) and his mentally ill first wife, Vivian (Miranda Richardson). Critics largely thought the film was dull, but in a weak year for female performances, Richardson picked up a Best Actress nomination, and Rosemary Harris, who played her mother, got nominated for Supporting Actress. Not even the pair of nominations could convince people to come see the film, as it finished its run with a mere $0.5 million.
Thirty Years Ago--December 1, 1989: Back to the Future Part II stayed at #1, but just barely, as it finished just a few hundred thousand over the weekend's single new release, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The comedy shook up the formula of the two previous Vacation movies, as Clark and Ellen Grizwold (Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo) decide to stay home for the holidays with the kids (Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki, who went on to be the most accomplished set of Grizwold kids ever), and host both sets of parents. Of course, simply because the Grizwolds don't travel doesn't mean disaster doesn't find them--and that's before Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) shows up. Critics at the time were decidedly mixed on the film, but audiences responded, as it opened to $11.8 million and played strongly through the holidays and into January, eventually grossing $71.3 million.
Thirty-Five Years Ago--November 30, 1984: Hollywood took a break after Thanksgiving, with no movies opening wide. Missing in Action and The Terminator each moved up one spot to 1st and 2nd, respectively, as Supergirl, which had already opened weakly, dropped over 55%--an almost-unheard of falloff at the time--and tumbled to third. The only movie to go even semi-wide was MGM's re-release of A Christmas Story, after what looked like the beginning of a successful run the previous year was curtailed by the film losing bookings to more high-profile holiday releases. The year-later re-release didn't attract all that much business--it would only pull in $1.3 million in 1984--but MGM had the right idea about the film, which is now a beloved holiday classic.
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