Today is Martin Luther King Jr day so many people in the US have the day off. Not that everyone is rushing to cinemas but that makes this a four day "weekend". Here is what was hot at the box office on Friday through Sunday...
| Weekend Box Office January 14th-16th 🔺 = new or expanding |
|
 SCREAM |
 BELLE |
| 1 SCREAM 🔺 $30.6 Glenn's Review, Franchise ranked |
6 BELLE 🔺 $1.6 Elisa's Review, Our 2019 Interview with Mamour Hosoda |
| 2 SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME ★ $20.8 (cum. $698.7) Visual FX Oscar finalist, About that Best Picture pitch | 2 AMERICAN UNDERDOG $1.6 (cum. $21) |
| 3 SING 2 $8.2 (cum. $119.3) | 3 WEST SIDE STORY $948k (cum. $33.7) Mike Faist Interview |
| 4 THE 355 $2.3 (cum. $8.4) Yes No Maybe So | 4 LICORICE PIZZA $883k (cum. $9.5) 10 Unheralded PTA performances |
|
5 THE KING'S MAN $2.3 (cum. $28.6) |
5 MATRIX RESURRECTIONS $815k (cum. $35.8) Capsule Review, The surprise MVP |
That very strong opening for Belle already makes it the top (US) grosser in Mamoru Hosada's career. The big question given its late arrival is whether or not it can score an Oscar nod as his previous film Mirai did; mainstream US critics, who should theoretically be more open-minded and see more movies, have ironically lagged behind Oscar's animation branch in terms of embracing international fare. If you look at their nominations over the years, they often ignore foreign animated films (unless they're breakout sensations) while Oscar's nominated shortlist has often made room for two international titles.
In other box office news, House of Gucci crossed the $50 million mark (a big deal nowadays) reconfirming its status as the year's top grosser beyond the traditional franchise "genre" culture (i.e. anything superhero, action/thriller, sequel oriented, horror, or animated). That depressing list reads like so...
- House of Gucci $50 million
- West Side Story $33 (instantly labelled a flop but still the second highest grossing movie for adults that wasn't part of traditional franchise/genre culture)
- In the Heights $29 (instantly labelled a flop but we think an okay turnout given all the strikes against it -- i.e. free on HBOMax and theaters had only recently reopened)
- Respect $24 (for comparisons sake that's the exact same US gross as the famous singer biopic Judy, pre pandemic)
- American Underdog $21
- The Green Knight $17
- The French Dispatch $16 (for comparisons sake, half as much as Wes Anderson's previous feature Isle of Dogs)
- Dear Evan Hansen $15
- King Richard $14 (one of the lowest grossers of Will Smith's career but it was free on HBOMax so there's that)
- Stillwater $14
- The Last Duel $10
- Cry Macho $10 (a very low gross as Clint Eastwood dramas go. His two previous pictures Richard Jewell and The Mule earned $22 million and $103 million pre-pandemic)
- Licorice Pizza $9 (PTA's movies are never box office bonanzas so this feels pretty good for a pandemic era release. Hs more recent picture prior to this, Phantom Thread, earned $21 million though it made most of that money after its Oscar nominations so Licorice Pizza could still have life in it)
- Nightmare Alley $9
- Spencer $7 (for comparison's sake Jackie made about double that)
- Belfast $7
- The Courier $6
- A Journal for Jordan $6
- Judas and the Black Messiah $6 (another one that was simultaneously free on HBOMax)
- Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain $5
- Zola $4
- Boogie $3
- '83 $3
- 12 Mighty Orphans $3
- Pig $3
In happier news...
Drive My Car and Parallel Mothers both more than doubled their screen counts this weekends in limited release and have earned $508k and $376k to date domestically. That may sound unspectacular but given that arthouse audiences have definitely been staying at home, those are pretty good numbers. Drive My Car is actually a huge success for Janus Films which typically gets nowhere near these numbers. It's on track to become their second highest theatrical grosser of all time albeit way behind their top film, the Oscar-winner The Great Beauty (2013) which grossed $13 million in its stateside release.