by Nathaniel R
| Weekend Box Office (Dec 1-3) UPDATED WITH ACTUALS |
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| W I D E 800+ screens |
L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide |
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| 1. Coco $26.1 (cum. $108.6) REVIEW | FEELING SEEN |
1.🔺 The Disaster Artist $1.2 on 19 screens |
| 2. Justice League $16.5 (cum. $197.3) REVIEW | 2.🔺 Man Who Invented Christmas $863k on 674 screens (cum. $3.1) |
| 3. Wonder $12.5 (cum. $88) |
3.🔺 Titanic (20th Anniversary) $415k on 87 screens |
| 4. Thor Ragnarok $9.6 (cum. $291.4) REVIEW, YOUR QUEEN | 4. Call Me By Your Name $281k on 4 screens (cum. $908k) SCREENPLAY | SEX SCENES |
| 5. Daddy's Home 2 $7.5 (cum. $82.8) |
5. Loving Vincent $211k on 161 screens REVIEW |
As expected Coco had no trouble keeping people's interest for another weeek. More impressive, due to lower expectations, is Wonder's continued performance. It just hit $100 million globally and if you think about it it could just as easily have been a $15-20 million grosser that few people noticed since bestselling books are hit and miss when they attempt to become bigticket movies. Kudos to the marketing team who were able to focus interest on it immediately despite so many other ostensibly family friendly movies in the marketplace.
(Maybe families are getting bored of superhero movies? Nah, that's wishful thinking since Justice League, is about to hit $200 million and will likely outperform the infinitely more beloved Wonder Woman in foreign markets if not at home). More after the jump...
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| 6. Murder on the Orient Express $6.7 (cum. $84.7) REVIEW | 6. 🔺 The Shape of Water $166k on 2 screens CAPSULE |
| 7. 🔺 Lady Bird $4.5 (cum. $17) REVIEW | 7. 🔺 Wonder Wheel $140k on 5 screens PODCAST |
| 8. 🔺 Three Billboards... $4.5 (cum. $13.6) REVIEW |
8. 🔺 My Friend Dahmer $140k on 90 screens (cum. $939k) REVIEW |
| 9. The Star $4 (cum. $27.2) | 9. The Florida Project $129k on 120 screens (cum. $4.8) REVIEW |
| 10. A Bad Mom's Christmas $3.4 (cum. $64.8) | 10. Darkest Hour $109k on 4 screens (cum. $411k) CAPSULE | SECOND VISIT |
🔺 = new or significant expansion numbers (in millions unless otherwise noted) from box office mojo |
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In new limited release The Shape of Water and Disaster Artist had terrific starts while Wonder Wheel didn't make a stir. Woody movies tend to signal their ultimate fates in their first limited weekend and that's usually but not always review-driven. If the film opens well it performs fairly well whether its bad or good (recent examples: To Rome With Love, Cafe Society) if it opens poorly it doesn't recover (recent examples: Irrational Man, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger), if it opens spectacularly well it becomes a solid hit and ends up with an Oscar nomination or multiple nods (recent examples: Blue Jasmine, Match Point, Midnight in Paris)
Here's the super curious thing about the limited release world this weekend: neither Call Me By Your Name nor Darkest Hour used their amazing starts last weekend to add ANY theaters. Strange move. They were both down over 30% in their second frames despite strong per screen averages. Seems like a missed opportunity because it's not going to get less competitive as we head into Christmas. Next weekend Shape of Water adds 10 or so ore cities and The Disaster Artist joines senior comedy Just Getting Started (Tommy Lee Jones, Morgan Freeman, Rene Russo) in wide release. Plus I Tonya joins the limited release free-for-all. Then the weekend after that Star Wars: The Last Jedi sucks up all the oxygen in both a galaxy far far away and in this one. After Star Wars you've got six wide release wannabe blockbusters and six new last minute limited release Oscar hopefuls all opening for Christmas or thereabouts.
In other words, Lady Bird and Three Billboards were right to strike when they did, going wide before everyone's heads are spinning and nobody knows which movie to look at with dozens and dozens of titles hoping to be the Christmas pick simultaneously.
WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?