Second weekend of December 2023

We told you this would be a pretty quiet week at the box-office, but similar to the way the box-office has been all year, it’s a little better than normal because we’re getting revenue from new sources. The Fall has been propped up by TAYLOR and BEYONCE, Apple has contributed significantly this Fall (and may have themselves a Best Picture contender because they leaned into theatrical) and now we have a weekend that’s going to be up a decent margin from last year because of…….Japan (more on that below). Last year we had no new wide releases, but some strong holds were propping up the box-office with Black Panther and the 2nd weekend of Violent Night. Looking back on 2019, this is a tough weekend to comp, since there were only 3 weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas instead of the 4 we have this year. So the 2019 2nd weekend in December is probably closer to next weekend’s films (Jumanji: The Next Level showed what a Jumanji movie could open to without a Star Wars movie against it at $59.3 million, plus Richard Jewell and Black Christmas opened), and clearly we’ll be way behind that total. However, next weekend we’ll start seeing some nice grosses and the fun begins.

Anyway, with the same accuracy and efficacy as a fruit inventory in space, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.

It could be a tight race for #1 this weekend, there are 4 films that all could end up claiming the crown, but this is my best guess what order they’re going to come in at based on the numbers I’m looking at now.

Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Continuing to leg out based on good word of mouth (it’s amazing how many of my civilian friends go out of their way to tell me how much they love this film), looks like it’s going to be down about 35% for a weekend just short of $10 million.

The Boy and the Heron - There’s a lot of really good things about this opening. First it’s clear that there’s a market for Anime here, and it’s broadening. Because of the strong work Crunchyroll and FUNimation have done to grow this genre, we’ve got something going on here that is pretty unusual, because this is not a film distributed by Crunchyroll or FUNimation; it’s distributed by GKIDS. Crunchyroll and FUNimation have done amazing work at growing the Anime genre, and they’ve opened a couple of their films to substantial numbers (several openings in the $20 million range), but GKIDS has been distributing Anime films over the same time period and the biggest opening they’ve ever had was a 3 day of $1.8 million on *Weathering with You *back in January 2020. This film outgrossed that during last night’s previews. Of course, this didn’t happen because GKIDS found a magic lamp, this film is directed by one of the true Masters of this genre, Hayao Miyazaki, who not only co-founded Studio Ghibli, but also directed such Anime classics as Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo and The Wind Rises. The average World Wide Gross on those 3 titles is $193 million. So there’s strong fanship here, and it’s showing up today at the box-office. They had a terrific preview night last night, but today isn’t correlating to those strong numbers, it’s a little flat and even though it’s going to be better than yesterday, it’s not going to be much better. So as good as this is, there might be a depth issue to the fan base and generally this genre drops tomrrow. It’s flat enough today that it could go anywhere, but for now I’ll say it looks like 8 or 9 for the weekend. Of course, as good as that is (and a record for GKIDS), the glass half empty mentality of our business immediately goes to ‘what could Crunchyroll or FUNimation have done with it?’

RENAISSANCE: A FILM BY BEYONCE - This looks more like a concert film in it’s 2nd weekend than TS’s film did (which, if you didn’t need another aspect that reinforces what an outlier she is, this reinforces it), and it looks down about 65% for a weekend in the mid 7’s.

Godzilla Minus One - Showing it truly is the Casablanca of Godzilla movies, the hold looks very strong today. Looks down about 35% for a weekend in the mid 7’s.

Waitress: The Musical - Another cleverly placed release that seems to be doing a little better than you would think, the grosses for this filmed version of the Broadway show are not half bad. They went 1200 runs and had a nicely targeted and efficient campaign, and the grosses are a little broader than you might think. So, similar to what I spoke about last week in regards to the BEYONCE film, this is filling a void for fans that didn’t get an opportunity to see the show live (or saw the show live and want to revisit it). This actually opened yesterday and did about $700k, and today looks up just a little bit. So figure a 3 day in the high 2’s and a 4 day in the mid 3’s.

Poor Things - This one is a monster*. Opened exclusive in NY, LA, SF and Austin and the numbers this weekend will pretty much be dictated by the theater capacity. This is so good that even theaters that have struggled since the pandemic (like Union Sq) are really good. Although, even though the numbers are good, the two theaters in SF aren’t what they used to be before the pandemic; but that could be more of a Downtown SF issue. But this should end up with a super sexy psa (especially considering it’s not just NY and LA) of $70k or so.

• For those of you who have seen the film already, feel free to hear a rimshot sfx.