Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Holidays. Since most of you are now scattered out in the far reaches of Bora Bora, St. Bart or Gstaad, you’re probably having a very nice holiday. Box office wise, up till now it’s all been a preshow, but as the kids say these days on the interwebs, the shit gets real today. Because the consumer is pretty wrapped up in pre Christmas clutter until today, but starting today they have nothing but time, the next 12 days are some of the best box office days of the year. And because we now have tentpoles like Star Wars at Christmas, Christmas Day rivals some of the best days of the year like mid summer Saturdays and Black Friday. Think of Christmas as a big game of ‘chutes and ladders’, and a couple of films will find their footing today and climb the ladder, but some will hit that slide and end up all the way down at the bottom of the board on the depressed looking kid in the wizard’s hat at #8.

For those of you who might end up in dating conversations for next Christmas, in order to have a successful pre Christmas opening you either have one or more of the following; you need to be a big tentpole with strong IP and Star Power, you need to have excellent critical response and playability, you need to have young or downscale appeal or you need to be on the ‘entertaining’ end of the emotion spectrum. You can’t wag your finger at the audience before Christmas the way we have a tendency to do in October. So, if you don’t have the goods, just open Christmas Day, you might end up with the same cume at the end of the day, but the optics will be much better.

Quite a few of you said I was being too hard on Cats last week while giving a pass to Richard Jewell the week before, but there’s a big difference between the two. One of the greatest challenges of being in this sector is the constant evolution of the marketplace and the business in general. When you’re choosing a date for a movie you consider a lot of factors, including success or failure based on history. However, sometimes there can be tiny nuances you don’t see coming that have a big effect on box office. In the case of Richard Jewell, Clint Eastwood opened The Mule to $17.5 million on the same weekend as Richard Jewell last year, so there was some precedent for this date. But looking back on the differences between the two, although both films did very well with both the critics and the audiences that went on opening weekend, perhaps we undervalued Clint Eastwood’s star power as an actor. But I think the biggest takeaway was that The Mule had a drug running aspect that felt adventurous and gave it some downscale appeal. Those are the nuances that make the difference between success and failure, but yes, Richard Jewell probably could have thrived if it was released today (as well as Cats).

So, let’s talk about today and the next couple of days. Today is really good for big city, adult and more upscale films; moviegoers who don’t necessarily celebrate Christmas, the Chinese food and a movie crowd. And then tonight it evolves into a more general moviegoer who is fleeing from their Christmas gatherings. Tomorrow and the next couple of days lean into moviegoers who are off work/school; so the more upscale films will go down tomorrow and the family films go up. So when you think of success or failure, today is only one piece of the puzzle. So, with the expected accuracy of my Christmas gift giving, here’s my best take on today’s box-office.

#1 Star Wars: The Return of Skywalker - Doing about the same thing (in relation to the rest of the run) as the other two films did, so figure it’s around or maybe a little above $30 million.

#2 Jumanji: The Next Level - After the strong start without Star Wars in the marketplace, it’s settled down to about 2/3 of the first film, so looks like about $12 million today.

#3 Little Women - Looking terrific today, right now it’s looking like about $8 million but with the young cast this could get a little bit of a night time surge from younger females.

#4 Uncut Gems - Went 2500 runs today and it looks exactly like Vice did last year on Xmas Day. So figure the same $4.7 for today plus the $1.2 they did yesterday for a total at or just short of $6 million. However, this is the type of film that does very well today, so more than likely this will be the best day of this films run.

5 Knives Out - Because of the slightly lower number of wide releases

this year, there was room for a couple of the strong holdovers to thrive here. Looking really resilient today for a gross of about $4 million.

#6 *Frozen II *- Just like Knives Out, getting a second wind. Kids films aren’t good today but this looks about the same as the $3.5 they did yesterday.

#7 Bombshell - Actually the biggest jump of the wide films from yesterday, this film is practically built for the audience that goes today. Looks like mid 2’s for today.

#8 Cats - Yep, it’s over for this film, Universal pretty much punted the salad on this one. There’s a rich history of musicals opening on Christmas Day such as Les Miserables, Into the Woods and Evita, but obviously this film didn’t turn out like those films. But there are two reasons to open today, one is to ‘launch’ an Adult skewing film on a day when there aren’t many entertainment alternatives, and musicals tend to hit that demo right on the head. But the second reason to open today is because it’s a great ‘smash and grab’ day, and you can do some really good business on a movie that didn’t turn out. Last year Holmes and Watson did about the same business today as Cats did all last weekend. Yep, Holmes and Watson. And looking at the history of musicals on this date, even with the bad reviews it’s possible they could have been fighting Little Women for 3rd place had they opened today. Looks like a little over $2 million today and more than likely it will be less from here on out.

1917 - Went with 11 exclusive runs in NY, LA, SF, Dallas, Chicago, Toronto and Washington DC. Looks terrific across the board today, should end up with a PSA of in the high 20’s.

*Just Mercy *- Went exclusive NY and LA in the classic 4. Looks great, probably a PSA around $20k.