With only one new wide release — which finished 13th this weekend — there wasn’t a lot of action at the box office, which is typical for the weekend after Thanksgiving as the studios consolidate their Thanksgiving winnings or lick their wounds after their losses before launching fully into awards season and more holiday blockbusters. With the window between Disney’s Frozen 2 and Disney’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker only a month long, one would think studios would want to take advantage of the weekend between the two, but that is not the case.
Frozen 2 led the way this weekend with a solid $34.6 million, which brings its three-week total to $337 million. That’ll put it ahead of Joker for the 7th biggest film of the year, domestic. For the record, six of the seven highest grossing films of the year are Disney owned; the one exception: Spider-Man: Far from Home, which is owned by Sony, but only performed as well as it did because of it’s association with Disney’s MCU. The film is now reached $919 million worldwide as it pushes closer to the $1 billion mark.
It was never gonna do Disney numbers, but Rian Johnson’s Knives Out continues to perform very well for Lionsgate. In its second weekend, it earned $14.15 million to bring its total to $63.4 million. It will probably top out domestically at around $100 million, which isn’t bad for a $40 million film that contains no superheroes. Meanwhile, Queen & Slim actually ticked up a notch ahead of Ford v. Ferrari in its second weekend, falling only 45 percent and earning $6.5 million. It’s two-week total is $26 million. The aforementioned Ford v. Ferrari, meanwhile, earned $6.4 million and has now amassed $90 million stateside. Meanwhile, with $5.2 million, Tom Hanks A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood has now earned $43 million on a $25 million budget.
Mark Ruffalo’s activist film Dark Waters expanded into 2000 theaters this weekend and earned $4 million to bring its total to $5.1 million. Chadwick Boseman’s 21 Bridges has now earned $24 million after a $2.7 million weekend. After five weeks, Playing With Fire has earned $42 million after a $2.1 million weekend. Midway is up to $53.5 million and Last Christmas hangs in for one more weekend, earning $1 million.
Notice, however, that The Playmobil Movie did not appear anywhere in the top ten, despite opening in 2300 theaters. The film ended up earning only $670,000, despite its $75 million price tag. That makes it the third worst opening ever for a movie opening in over 2000 theaters, narrowly ahead of The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure and Delgo, both also kids’ movies. Fortunately, STX Films — which distributed the film — had no financial stake in it. It stars Adam Lambert, Kenan Thompson, Meghan Trainor and Daniel Radcliffe, and reviews were not good (20 percent on Rotten Tomatoes). The film opened internationally over the summer, and it only earned $12 million overseas.
Epic flail.
STX's PLAYMOBIL: THE MOVIE scored one of the worst debuts of all-time with a disastrous $670k in 2,337 venues–$286 per.
Folks, this is disastrous news for K'NEX: THE MOVIE, LINCOLN LOGS: THE MOVIE and PICK-UP STIX: THE MOVIE. pic.twitter.com/pefHVbZXA2
— Exhibitor Relations Co. (@ERCboxoffice) December 8, 2019
Next weekend, the release schedule kicks back into gear with five new wide releases. Bombshell, the Fox News pic, opens against Adam Sandler’s Oscar-worthy turn in Uncut Gems, Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson’s Jumanji sequel, The Next Level, the horror film Black Christmas and Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell. Jumanji will undoubtedly take the weekend, but it should be a fun race for second place.
Source: Box Office Mojo, Deadline
