Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has a sharper-than-expected fall, while the opening of Violent Night is more nice than naughty.
After a series of high-profile flops in the 90s and aughts, the studios largely abandoned releasing major films the first weekend of December. Subsequently, the weekend mostly became a dead zone, with most films suffering a big drop from Thanksgiving weekend. This post-Thanksgiving weekend was no exception.
Coming in at #1 for the fourth straight weekend was Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which surprisingly had the steepest fall of all the holdovers in the Top 10. It tumbled over 60% from the Friday-Sunday portion of Thanksgiving weekend, to $17.5 million. That's enough to bring its total to $393.7 million. It should still easily pass Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness by the end of its run, but probably not by as much as was expected even last week.
What does sometimes work on this weekend is genre films. In 2015, Krampus opened to $16.3 million on its way to $42.7 million. History repeated itself with another Christmas black comedy in Violent Night, which wasn't far off of Krampus's opening, as it took in $13.5 million. If it follows Krampus's trajectory, it could finish around $35 million. However, there are signs that Night could have decent legs, as it improved from Friday to Saturday, a relatively rare phenomenon on opening weekends these days. If Night can play well through New Year's, it could equal or even top Krampus's final total.
At this point, Strange World seems destined to be Disney's lowest-grossing major animated feature since Treasure Planet in 2002. It fell to $5.1 million, for a 12-day total of $25.7 million. Last year, Disney cut Encanto's box office off by sending it to Disney+ by Christmas. They should have no such worry if they do the same to World this year.
The Menu, the holiday season's other violent black comedy featuring John Leguizamo, took in $3.5 million, for a total of $24.6 million.
Fighter pilot drama Devotion also failed to take off in its second weekend, earning only $2.7 million, for a 12-day total of $13.7 million. It seems likely that its final approach will be under $20 million.
I Heard the Bells, a little-promoted biopic of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, brought out the same audience that flocked to the first two episodes of The Chosen a couple of weeks ago. It took in $2 million over the weekend, for a total of $2.8 million since its Thursday opening. We'll see if it has OK legs, or it immediately collapses like The Chosen did.
Black Adam continues to chug along, taking in $1.6 million for a total of $165.1 million.
The Fabelmans will likely ultimately have a decent run thanks to awards attention, but right now, Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical drama could only take in $1.3 million in its second wide weekend, for a total of $5.5 million. Likely not benefiting from awards attention is cannibal romance Bones and All, which made $1.2 million in its second wide weekend for $6 million.
Rounding out the Top 10 is romcom Ticket to Paradise, which is now at $66.5 million.
Hoping to get a bit more money ahead of the arrival of Avatar: The Way of the Water is Top Gun: Maverick, which was re-released to mostly indifference, taking in only $0.7 million.
Despite being only two weekends before Christmas, this weekend has no wide releases, with the closest being the expansion of cancer comedy-drama Spoiler Alert, starring Jim Parsons and Sally Field. A few streaming titles (Matilda: The Musical, Emancipation, White Noise) also hit multiplexes, as will a PG-13 edit of the spring's R-rated flop Father Stu, to attract family audiences. Does this mean that Black Panther will repeat by default? Or could Violent Night surprise in its second weekend? We'll find out next week.
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