Weekend Box Office: ‘Jumanji’ Scores Big, But ‘Black Christmas’ And ‘Richard Jewell’ Level Down

Two years ago, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle opened with weekend after Star Wars: The Last Jedi and somehow managed earn nearly $1 billion worldwide and yet still maintain something of a sleeper status, having been overwhelmed by the massive run ofStar Wars. This time around, Jumanji: The Next Level will be facing yet another Star Wars entry, The Last Skywalker, but Sony decided to open their film a week before Skywalker. The result is a $60 million weekend, which is 66 percent better than the $36 million opening of Welcome to the Jungle, although they’re not exactly comparable. Jungle opened the weekend before Christmas, which is typically a somewhat slower weekend, as audiences spread their moviegoing across the entire holiday week.

Jungle also had insane box-office legs, building on a $36 million opening toward a $400 million domestic run. The question for Next Level — produced by Matt Tolmach, Jake Kasdan, Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia, and Hiram Garcia — is if it will be able to maintain its momentum through the rest of the holidays while facing off against Rise of Skywalker and the rest of the holiday offerings. Critics didn’t like this one quite as much as the last one (66 percent on Rotten Tomatoes compared to Jungle’s 76 percent), but the A- Cinemascore suggest that Jumanji should have a fine run through December and into January, even if it’s not quite enough to hit $400 million.

The news was not so great for Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell, which came under fire for its depiction of a real-life female reporter. It’s unclear if that affected the film’s performance (probably not), but audiences certainly didn’t seem to be terribly curious about Richard Jewell’s story, turning out to the tune of only $5 million. I thought the movie was fine — neither as good as the 73 percent on Rotten Tomatoes or the A on Cinemascore — but Paul Walter Hauser and Sam Rockwell were absolutely phenomenal in it. Unless there is a dramatic turnaround over the next two weeks, however, it looks like a rare misfire for director Clint Eastwood, as the film is not likely to recoup its $45 million budget stateside and there’s not a lot of interest in the Richard Jewell story overseas.

Jewell fared marginally better than the remake of the slasher flick Black Christmas, which earned $4.5 million. It sits at 44 percent over on Rotten Tomatoes, but that doesn’t really tell the whole story, because both critics — and audiences — are strongly divided in camps between those who love it and those who think it’s one of the worst films of the year (the latter certainly seemed to influence the D+ Cinemascore). I personally liked the film, but I am probably among those who haters of the film might disparagingly call an SJW. The $4.5 million is not a great result — the studio was expecting $10 million — but it’s a Blumhouse film, so it was made cheaply ($5 million budget) and will likely earn its money back in the coming weeks.

Holdovers held all spots in the rest of the top ten. Frozen 2 and Knives Out continued their impressive runs, holding second and third place respectively with $19.2 million ($366 million overall) and $9.2 (and $78.5 million to date). Frozen 2 has now surpassed $1 billion, while Knives Out has put up an impressive $162.2 globally. After Jewell and Christmas, Ford v. Ferrari landed in sixth place, earning another $4.1 million as it edges toward $100 million with $98.1 million to date.

Queen and Slim earned $3.5 million, and has now earned $33 million. Tom Hanks’ A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is on the cusp of $50 million ($49.1 million) after a $3.2 million weekend. Not bad for a film that only cost $25 million to produce. Mark Ruffalo’s Dark Waters now has earned $8.6 million after a $1.8 million weekend, and 21 Bridges continues to hang on to the bottom rung of the top ten by earning $1.2 million to bring its total to $26.3 million.

In limited release, both Adam Sandler’s Uncut Gems and the Fox News pic, Bombshell, scored big, earning the first and third biggest per screen averages of the year, respectively (Parasite remains sandwiched in between).

Next weekend should be a huge one as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker closes out the this Star Wars story. It’s the weekend before Christmas, so it probably won’t break any weekend records, but over the long haul it will likely challenge a number of box-office feats. Meanwhile, it’ll face off against Cats, while Bombshell will be going wide.

Source: Deadline, Box Office Mojo