TAGGED AS: Box Office, movies, news
The kickoff to November used to be a bit of a banger. At the very least, it was a transition from the general downswing into autumn from summer and then back into a full push of holiday cheer. Marvel’s opening of Eternals notwithstanding, the period from 2019 on — albeit one damaged by a pandemic — has been marked more with disappointment and even indifference than anything else by the studios. This year is no exception.
In 2019, the top film at the box office at the usual start of the holiday movie season was Terminator: Dark Fate. It began with a disappointing $29 million and finished with an even more disappointing $62.6 million. In 2020, films dribbled out during the pandemic. November of 2021 began with Eternals and its $71.2 million, but it was ultimately another disappointment for fans, critics, and Disney. Hollywood did not even try in 2022, seemingly believing that Black Adam might still be a thing in its third week. Sure, it won the week with $18.2 million, but its only competition was Crunchyroll’s One Piece Film: Red, which made about half that. Last year, studios left the weekend to the second frame of Five Nights at Freddy’s, which fell over 76%, besting Taylor Swift by a bit over $5 million in its fourth weekend. The new films that week included an inspirational Eugenio Derbez film (Radical), Meg Ryan’s directorial debut (What Happens Later), and Daisy Ridley on the run (The Marsh King’s Daughter). None of those opened in 1,500 theaters.
Perhaps the best news for this week’s No. 1, Venom: The Last Dance, is that its $26.1 million is the highest opening week of November in three years since Eternals (not that it’s going to gross as much domestically as that film, even as it will give it a go worldwide). That is a similar number to what David Fincher’s Gone Girl made in its second weekend ($26.4 million). Venom’s 10-day total is now at $90 million, whereas Gone Girl’s was at $77.8 million. The weekend estimate was initially forecast as around $19-20 million, so that leap is good news for Sony, which hopes to put a little more gravy into this pot. Even if Venom begins to drop a bit more than Fincher’s film, the balance with its lead could still get the film into the $160-170 million domestic range. Globally the film is over $317 million and is already into profit for Sony. It only needs $371 million to enter the top 10 worldwide grossers of the year.
In years past, a new film by Robert Zemeckis and/or Tom Hanks would have been welcome to kickoff any season. Originally scheduled for a limited release followed by an expansion on Nov. 15, Sony put Here out everywhere, and the 30-year Forrest Gump reunion of Zemeckis, Hanks, and Robin Wright grossed just $5 million. Sony did Zemeckis no favors in 2015 when they tried a limited IMAX release with The Walk on the same weekend that The Martian opened. It was immediately forgotten about and ended up with the lowest gross of Zemeckis’ career since his debut, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, back in 1978. Even his 1980 release, Used Cars (also distributed by Sony in a scattered release a few weeks after Airplane!), finished with $11.7 million (or roughly $44-45 million in today’s dollars).
Here came in at a reported cost of $50 million. Zemeckis’ return to live-action filmmaking post-A Christmas Carol has only seen one theatrical film (Allied) exceed a budget of $50 million or higher. Flight, The Walk, and Welcome to Marwen all came in between $31-39 million. The sad reality is that Zemeckis’ final domestic grosses have resulted in everything since Flight coming up short, with Allied and Marwen proving particularly costly. All of his animated films left theaters in the red. Critics have also piled on, with his work earning Tomatometer scores of 27% (Pinocchio), 34% (Welcome to Marwen), 50% (Roald Dahl’s The Witches), and now Here, which currently sits at 36%. Though The Polar Express has certainly maintained its place in the culture of Christmas popularity over the last 20 years, Flight is the only theatrical success Zemeckis has had since the release of Cast Away back in 2000.
Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot continues to draw audiences, moving back up to second place for its sixth straight week in the top three. Grabbing $7.5 million (an 11% increase from week five), the film has a 38-day total of $121.5 million, which is the seventh best for a film opening in September, just ahead of Sully ($118.2 million), Rush Hour ($117.2 million), and The Nun ($115.9 million). It’s also almost officially $5 million ahead of the pace of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (which had a $5.2 million sixth weekend), and with no other family competition out there for a while, it should be able to cruise itself to over $130 million domestic. Worldwide the film is over $269 million. It is the 13th highest-grossing film of the year (domestic AND worldwide) and should remain one of the 20 most profitable films of 2024.
Back to third place this weekend is Parker Finn’s Smile 2, which may not be holding up quite as well as its predecessor but is nevertheless where it needs to be in terms of financial success. A 29% fall to $6.8 million in its third weekend (compared to $12.5 million of the original) brings its total to $52.6 million. Last week, we compared its numbers to that of Happy Death Day. A week later, that film’s numbers were at $5.07 million and $48.3 million; Smile 2 looks to be headed somewhere closer to the $60-65 million range rather than $55-60 million. It is now over $100 million worldwide and may fall well short of the original’s $217 million gross, but it is most decidedly into profit and every dollar is another victory.
Focus’ best play for awards coverage this year, Conclave, is doing a lot better than it may have if they just platformed it. $5.3 million may not seem like much compared to the films already discussed but that is just a 20% decrease from its opening, and $15.2 million is more in 10 days than any film they have released this year apart from The Bikeriders. Conclave appears clearly primed to outgross that film’s $21.6 million and become, at least, the company’s third-highest gross (behind Asteroid City and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3) since June of 2022, if not the highest in that time.
Here we must take a moment to observe space that normally would have been reserved to talk about the box office numbers for Juror #2. Warner Bros., in their continued bad judgment and disrespect, have decided not only to platform Eastwood’s film (with no plans for expansion) but to not even report the domestic numbers. Eastwood is 94 years old. The film could be his swan song. He’s been fiercely loyal to the studio since his first directorial effort for them, The Outlaw Josey Wales, back in 1975, and more than half of his efforts have been profitable. We should also point out that the film is currently Certified Fresh at 90%, earning his best reviews since Sully (Certified Fresh at 85%) in 2016 and Letters from Iwo Jima (Certified Fresh 91%) in 2006. His last film, Cry Macho, was released during WB’s all-year day-and-date streaming experiment and grossed $10.3 million, nearly as much as the pre-slap Will Smith awards vehicle King Richard, which grossed all of $15.1 million. Juror #2 did make $5 million internationally over the weekend.
All week Terrifier 3 has been touting that it had passed $50 million in grosses worldwide. This weekend, it can boast that it has achieved that number domestically, which is quite the feat for an unrated independent horror film. The $3.2 million it earned in its fourth week brought the $2 million production’s total up to $50.5 million (and over $62 million globally). Terrifier 3 is also one of the 20 most profitable films of 2024 and is a huge part of a year that should be remembered for indie horror successes like Longlegs and Late Night with the Devil.
A24’s initial platform of We Live In Time looks like it may just turn into one of those pre-awards season releases to expand into a $20 million gross. We have talked about this before in this column, but it’s a unique measure of success vs. failure when it comes to these types of releases aimed at adults. This was a quicker expansion than most, but it has still paid off with another $3.4 million in its second week (just a 28% decrease) in over 2,900 theaters. It is now up to $17.6 million. Everyone’s darling indie studio has only had 10 other films gross as much in their first 24 days, including last year’s Priscilla, which had $16.98 million at this point, and it was already down to 1,063 theaters, grossing $1.21 million in its fifth week of release. We Live In Time’s 2,968 theater count is also the fourth-largest release in the studio’s history behind Civil War (3,929), Hereditary (2,998), and Pearl (2,982).
Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is the sixth film this year to spend at least nine weeks in the top 10, and it hopes to stay there for as long as it can as it reaches for that $300 million milestone. It earned $2.09 million to bring its total to $292.1 million. Its box office spirit animal, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, had $293.8 million by this point and a $1.28 million ninth weekend. Beetlejuice Deux is exactly where it wants to be performing to inch its way into milestone territory. It still took Clones another seven weeks to get there so we’ll be monitoring its progress. The film is already on PVOD and will be hitting 4K Blu-ray on Nov. 19.
Rounding out the top 10 over the Diwali holiday beginning on Thursday were a pair of Bollywood sequels. Both Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 and Singham Again grossed $2.1 million over the weekend.
Anora just missed getting into the top 10 this weekend. Sean Baker’s film jumped into 253 theaters and grossed $1.81 million. Back in 2001, Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe went from a 23-theater launch of $667,784 into 276 theaters and made $1.95 million. It went on to gross over $24 million. Last week, Anora opened to $550,503 in just six theaters. Baker’s last film, Red Rocket, grossed just $1.02 million in the middle of the pandemic, while 2017’s The Florida Project made $5.9 million. Anora has made $3.85 million in just 10 days of limited release.
Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore directorial effort A Real Pain opened to $240,000 in just four theaters in NY and LA. That is the third-best theater average ($60,000) of 2024 after last week’s debut of Anora ($91,751) and Kinds of Kindness back in June ($75,458). It is also the third-best launch in four theaters post-2020 after Licorice Pizza ($345,157) and Beau Is Afraid ($320,396). Only four movies have ever opened to as much (including Beau) and not grossed at least $10 million. The film will expand into 800 theaters on Nov. 15.
Samuel Goldwyn’s release of the latest Liam Neeson thriller Absolution garnered $1.42 million in 1,537 theaters. Earlier this year, their release of another Leam Neeson flick, In the Land of Saints and Sinners, opened to $1.05 million in 896 theaters. And finally, shout-out to the remarkable holding power of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, which made another $476,000 this weekend in 339 theaters. Mubi’s release has now made $15.4 million total.
A24 is hoping for a big response next week for Scott Beck & Bryan Woods’ Heretic. It’s already Certified Fresh on the Tomatometer; the box office is next, and then the campaign for a Hugh Grant nomination will be on. A good showing in theaters by more than just horror fans could be the extra push he needs. Also, Lionsgate is releasing The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, based on the book from 1972 about a half-dozen bad children who end up in a town’s annual theatrical performance, and hopes it will open to at least $5 million for the first time since Borderlands in August.
40%
81%
Venom: The Last Dance
(2024)
– $26.1 million ($90 million total)
98%
98%
The Wild Robot
(2024)
– $7.5 million ($121.5 million total)
86%
81%
Smile 2
(2024)
– $6.8 million ($52.6 million total)
92%
85%
Conclave
(2024)
– $5.3 million ($15.2 million total)
35%
58%
Here
(2024)
– $5 million ($5 million total)
78%
83%
We Live in Time
(2024)
– $3.4 million ($17.6 million total)
77%
85%
Terrifier 3
(2024)
– $3.2 million ($50.5 million total)
36%
76%
Singham Again
(2024)
– $2.26 million ($2.26 million total)
46%
58%
Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3
(2024)
– $2.18 million ($2.18 million total)
76%
79%
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
(2024)
– $2.09 million ($292.1 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
