A plethora of new releases help buoy what is usually a very slow weekend, but while successful, Beyonce's new movie isn't Taylor Swift successful.
(Catch-up continues)
After a series of high-profile flops, the major studios abandoned releasing major films on the first weekend of December, aka the post-Thanksgiving weekend. Instead, since the mid-aughts, nearly everything that goes wide on this date has been dumps--cheap horror, the occasional cheap comedy, very occasionally an Oscar-baity movie that didn't turn out the way the studio expected. The only two films that opened wide on this weekend and have done well during this time are Christmas-themed genre titles: Krampus in 2015 and Violent Night last year. For whatever reason, however, four films chose this weekend to open, another expanded wide, and a sixth had a big enough opening to land in the Top 10. Not all of them could be considered successful, but they collectively helped this weekend have a much smaller decline from Thanksgiving weekend than normal.
Beyonce has built her career by being original and daring, but like many artists, has "borrowed" elements from others and put her own twist on them (arguably the most famous example was adapting the chorography in the "Single Ladies" video from an old Bob Fosse-choreographed routine). Still, it is a bit of a surprise that she so blatantly copied the release strategy for her own concert film from Taylor Swift--announcing the release only a couple months in advance and teaming with AMC Theaters instead of a more traditional movie studio. However, unlike The Eras Tour, which arrived on a huge wave of hype and crushed the existing record for a concert film's gross its opening weekend, Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce, arrived much more quietly, and had an opening weekend to reflect that. To be sure, a $21.8 million opening is terrific, easily the best for a film opening this weekend since The Last Samurai in 2003, but for theater owners who were expecting another windfall along the likes of what Swift's film did in October, they had to be disappointed. We'll see if Beyonce will be able to beat Taylor in one critical area, though: legs. Eras Tour has yet to double its opening weekend gross, and a long run through the holidays might ensure that Renaissance does that and more.
After two weeks on top, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes falls to second, with a not-bad-for-this-weekend 51% drop from last weekend. The thriller took in $14.2 million to raise its total to $120.9 million. Lionsgate would certainly love to feast on more Hunger, but alas, Ballad appears to be a one-off from author Suzanne Collins, who is likely too busy swimming, Scrooge McDuck-like, in her vault of money to write another follow-up.
Godzilla has made quite the impact on the US box office the last few years, with Godzilla, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Godzilla vs. Kong all turning in solid grosses. Of course, Godzilla is Japanese, and while his various movies had been a staple of Saturday afternoon TV for decades, the Japanese productions have not done great business in US theaters, with the biggest success, Godzilla 2000, making only $10 million, and 2016's Shin Godzilla only pulling in $1.9 million.
That's why the opening of Godzilla Minus One is such a happy surprise. The Japanese drama, which takes the series back to its roots, setting the story in post-World War II Tokyo, boasts superior special effects and a serious story, and it paid off to the tune of $11.4 million, already making it the highest-grossing Japanese Godzilla movie in the North American market ever. These types of movies have fairly weak legs, so this will likely end up making only about $20-$30 million domestic, but as successful as this has been overseas, the American grosses will be pure gravy.
Coming in fourth is Trolls Band Together, which held up considerably better than the other animated title right now at the US box office. The animated musical comedy, which revolves around Brach (Justin Timberlake) reuniting with his old boy band, brought in $7.8 million for a total of $75.1 million, and could be headed for a $100 million final.
Likely not getting anywhere near $100 million is Wish, Disney's latest animated disaster, which at least is not Strange World, but is a long way from Encanto (which didn't hit $100 million either). Despite opening a week later, Wish is already looking up at Trolls, with a weekend gross of $7.7 million and a 12-day total of $42.3 million. With Wonka and Migration lurking to take the family audience, there seems to be little prospect of Wish being able to recover. As of now, the only animated title from the studio for next year is Pixar's Inside Out 2, which, for the studio's sake, better be a smash.
Also facing its box office Waterloo is Napoleon, which managed to have an even bigger slide than Wish, falling to $7.3 million for a 12-day total of $45.9 million. Given that the film cost at least $130 million, it's going to have to do incredible business overseas, as not even awards consideration seems likely to boost the grosses much (not that Napoleon is getting much in the way of awards buzz).
Despite opening on fewer than 700 screens in North America, the Indian action flick Animal did well enough to hit 7th for the weekend, taking in $6.5 million. Like most Indian movies, this one will likely burn out quickly, but could top out at between $10-$12 million before then, a solid North American sum for a Bollywood movie.
After shocking Hollywood by pushing Sound of Freedom to almost $200 million domestic, tiny Angel Studios was able to earn nearly $12 million for a documentary about the afterlife this fall. So clearly they know how to get people into theaters. The Shift, a thriller that combines the current rage for parallel universes with the Biblical Book of Job, won't be the next Sound of Freedom, but won't be an embarrassment either (at least box-office wise) as it opened to a pretty decent $4.3 million, or $2 million more than the much more hyped Journey to Bethlehem opened to last month. If this can gross over $10 million, it will be another success for Angel.
After his big budget thriller Paycheck was a critical and commercial flop in 2003, director John Woo chose to walk away from any further American paychecks and returned to Hong Kong, where he's been turning out a number of action and war movies that, for whatever reason, haven't really seen much viewing in North America. After his two-decade hiatus, however, Woo is back with Silent Night, a Christmas-set thriller starring Joel Kinnaman as an ordinary guy out for revenge after his young son is caught in the crossfire between rival gangs. The big gimmick of this one, as the title suggests, is there's no actual spoken dialogue in the film. The return of Woo mostly resulted in critical yawns, and the film opened to a disappointing $3 million, about $10 million below what the similarly titled Violent Night opened to last year. That film had surprisingly strong legs that allowed it to be a factor all the way to New Year's. We'll see if Silent will be able to make some noise going forward.
With the titular holiday over, it's not surprising that slasher flick Thanksgiving fell hard, taking in $2.6 million to round out the Top 10 for a total of $28.4 million.
After a limited release last week, the surreal Nicolas Cage comedy Dream Scenario expanded this weekend, but it was more of a nightmare, as the film took in $1.7 million, for a twelve-day total of $3.5 million. This one should finish well under $10 million.
As noted above, studios had long abandoned the first weekend of December. More recently, they have also largely abandoned the second weekend as well, as they prefer to open as close to Christmas as possible in order to take full advantage of the lucrative week between Christmas and New Year's. This has led to a pileup of releases the last couple of weekend before the holiday and a virtual ghost town the weekend before. Indeed, the last two major studio releases on this weekend were West Side Story two years ago and Office Christmas Party all the way back in 2016. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that next week's only wide opening is from GKids. The Boy and Heron is almost certainly the final film from legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki, who came out of a ten-year retirement to direct this at 82. With a PG-13 rating and some decidedly dark themes running through the film, this doesn't seem likely to appeal to family audiences, who will likely take the kiddos to Wish or Trolls instead. But Miyazaki has a large, dedicated fanbase in North America, and anime in general has an even larger one. Could that fanbase make Heron only the third anime title to top the American box office charts? Might Beyonce keep a solid grasp on the top position? Or could audience Hunger for Songbirds and Snakes once again? We'll find out next week.
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