The Film Experience

What did you see over the weekend? General audiences were singing along to Frozen II in big numbers while Knives Out exceeded expectations with a strong opening weekend. After the jump everything still in wide release plus their counterparts at the moment in the world of platform titles...

Weekend Box Office November 29th-December 1st (ACTUALS) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES

1 FROZEN II $85.9 (cum. $288.8) REVIEW	1 JOJO RABBIT $1.2 on 730 screens (cum. $18.3) TIFF WIN, PODCAST ★


2 🔺 KNIVES OUT $26.7 (cum. $41.4) REVIEW, WHODUNNITS ★	2 PARASITE $1.0 on 382 screens (cum. $18.2) PODCAST, CLASS, BONG ★


3 FORD V FERRARI $13.1 (cum. $81) REVIEW, PODCAST ★	3 🔺 DARK WATERS $621k on 94 screens (cum. $964k) REVIEW ★


4 🔺 QUEEN & SLIM $11.8 (cum. $16) new	4 🔺 HONEY BOY $368k on 186 screens (cum. $1.4) REVIEW, PODCAST ★


5 A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN... $11.7 (cum. $34.2) REVIEW ★	5 🔺 WAVES $140k on 47 screens (cum. $564k) REVIEW, 2ND OPINION ★


6 21 BRIDGES $5.5 (cum $19.2)	6 THE LIGHTHOUSE $115k on 90 screens (cum. $10.3) REVIEW ★


7 PLAYING WITH FIRE $4.2 (cum. $39.2)	7 🔺 PAIN & GLORY $104k on 152 screens (cum. $3.4) REVIEW, PODCAST, TV SPOT ★


8 MIDWAY $3.9 (cum. $50.2)	8 JAY & SILENT BOB REBOOT $22k on 6 screens (cum. $2.8)


9 LAST CHRISTMAS $2 (cum. $31.6) REVIEW	9 BETTER DAYS $19k on 13 screens (cum. $1.9)


10 JOKER $1.9 (cum. $330.5) REVIEW, PRODUCTION DESIGN	10 🔺 WHITE SNAKE $16k on 21 screens ($21k) REVIEW new ★


11 HARRIET $1.8 (cum. $39.4) REVIEW, PODCAST	11 🔺 63 UP $13k on 1 screen (cum. $18k) new


12 THE GOOD LIAR $1.5 (cum. $14.8) REVIEW	12 PEANUT BUTTER FALCON $12k on 31 screens (cum. $20.4) REVIEW


13 MALEFICENT MISTRESS OF EVIL $1.3 (cum. $111.5) REVIEW	13 🔺 SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL $12k on 6 screens new


14 🔺 CHARLIE'S ANGELS $1.2 (cum. $16.8) REVIEW	14 LINDA RONSTADT... $11k on 20 screens (cum. $4.2) REVIEW


15 🔺 DOCTOR SLEEP $900k (cum. $30.5) REBECCA FERGUSON	15 🔺 VARDA BY AGNES $8k on 2 screens (cum. $28k) RIP VARDA

Frozen II broke Thanksgiving records and will surely wind up in the top three highest grossers of the year when all is said and done. Meanwhile Ford V Ferrari keps earning for Fox so it should easily cross the $100 million mark. It's always such a relief when non-genre movies made for adults do that! In less rosy news in the Oscar contender realm of box office players, JoJo Rabbit is now starting to slow down some might say prematurely. Parasite is also finally slowing but it's going to cross $20 million which is crazy great for a foreign language title. We think it's going to end up being the biggest foreign-language hit since Pan's Labyrinth which earned $37.6 domestically but at a time when the market was easier for subtitled features so that's truly staggering. To put things into context the "big" foreign hits that the media obsesses over and that end up in the Oscar mix tend to be around the size of Pain and Glory which is Pedro's best performing film both domestically ($3.4) and internationally ($35.6) since Volver.

Oddly movie studios are giving most of the current movies a wide wide berth to earn more money next week. Barely anything opens next week apart from a screen or 4 to literally dozens of tiny indies, including one sadly abandoned until 2020 "qualifying release" (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) and two higher profile soon-to-be-streaming titles (Marriage Story and The Aeronauts) that won't be reporting grosses so you'll just have to trust anecdotal evidence from people you know about whether or not anyone is seeing them in theaters.

On December 13th, though, it's totally chaos again. From then on there are major wide releases as well as high profile limited releases opening constantly until Clemency closes out the theatrical release year on December 27th.