Tom & Jerry surprises with the biggest opening since Wonder Woman 1984.
Good news abounded this week. Coronavirus cases continue to decline, vaccine production and distribution continues to ramp up, New York City theaters are set to reopen, and it turns out that a cat and mouse team that has been around for 80 years are bigger movie stars than Denzel Washington and Liam Neeson.
Tom & Jerry, the live-action/animated hybrid marking a return to the big screen for the dynamic duo, shocked just about everyone by opening to $14.1 million. That's by far the biggest bow since Wonder Woman 1984, which had the advantage of opening Christmas weekend, and far ahead of the January openings of The Little Things and The Marksman. Indeed, Tom & Jerry has already outgrossed both those movies, and nearly everything else released since theaters first closed nearly a year ago. And, with the extremely long legs of the two most prominent family films released prior to this--The Croods: A New Age and The War With Grandpa--Tom & Jerry could very well be pulling in strong grosses for the next few months, even if its tenure at the top turns out to be short-lived.
Coming in a distant second is the aforementioned Croods, which took in $1.3 million for a total of $52.4 million. It continues to creep closer to Tenet. If it is able to maintain grosses at or at least near a million, it should pass it within the next few weeks. If it starts falling off dramatically, though, it could easily fall short.
Tom & Jerry and The Croods were the only two titles to top $1 million this weekend. Falling below that line were The Little Things, which is up to $12.9 million as it heads toward a possible Oscar nomination for co-star Jared Leto, Wonder Woman 1984, which is up to $43.6 million as it could cash in on some technical nominations (helped by being the year's only big budgeted superhero movie), and The Marksman, which is now up to $12.4 million and is likely not to be nominated for anything.
On the other hand, Nomadland can expect a bunch of nominations as it capped up its weekend by winning the Golden Globes for Best Picture-Drama and Best Director. It has now topped $1 million in grosses and actually ticked up a bit from last weekend. With a Best Picture nomination a certainty, it could have some strong legs of its own.
Judas and the Black Messiah, which also won a Globe for co-star Daniel Kaluuya, had another troubling drop of nearly half, but is still up to $4.1 million. We'll see if Kaluuya's certain Supporting Actor Oscar nod, as well as other potential nominations like Screenplay and maybe even Picture, will help the gross.
Rounding out the Top 10 are a pair of Christmas releases still chugging along, Monster Hunter and News of the World (which also has Oscar hopes), and recent opening Land. Their grosses are, respectively $14 million, $12 million, and $2.1 million.
Falling out of the Top 10 after 20 weeks is The War With Grandpa, which departs with $20.5 million in the bank.
Three new movies go wide this weekend. Likely topping the chart will be Disney's Raya and the Last Dragon. There could be trouble however, as Cinemark has refused to book the film in any of its theaters, apparently because the studio was refusing to yield on their normal, pre-pandemic terms even though the film is also debuting on Disney + this weekend (albeit with a $30 charge). That could eat into the film's grosses. Also opening is Chaos Walking, a sci-fi actioner starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, and the basketball drama Boogie. Will Raya win the weekend as expected, or could Tom & Jerry pull an upset? We'll find out next week.
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