Box Office Update: Beyoncé is no Taylor Swift while Godzilla mutes Silent Night

Numbers have begun rolling in for this first weekend of December and to the surprise of no one, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé is seeing a first place finish in the $20-$25 million range. If it comes in on the higher end, it would become the highest grossing debut for the first weekend of December, beating out the $24.2 million made by 2003’s The Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise (naturally). While this is a solid start for the concert film, it is far from the $92.8 million that Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour launched with just a month and a half ago and more in line with other concert films such as Justin Bieber: Never Say Never ($29.5 million debut), Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds ($31.1 million debut) and Michael Jackson’s This Is It ($23.2 million debut) I am but a humble box office reporter, so I can not answer the question as to why Beyoncé doesn’t seem to have the box office pull that Taylor Swift had, but I can say that these two films have launched AMC Theaters into the distribution game with tremendous success.

After its surprise win last week in its second week, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes looks to continue its momentum with a drop in the upper 40% to lower 50% range and a nearly $15 million third week. That is a solid hold for a movie that was all but written off as a bomb just two weeks ago when it under-performed in its opening weekend. Solid word of mouth has helped propel this one to a healthy showing. In a year filled with $200-$300 million budgeted bombs, The Hunger Games prequel has shown that if you keep your budget in check ($100 million), you can actually make a profit.

Third place is going to the Japanese language Godzilla Minus One with what is looking like a $10-$11 million domestic debut. Strong reviews, including an 8/10 from our own Tyler Nichols, are getting audiences excited for this 37th film in the original Godzilla franchise.

Disney will continue its yearly lump of coal as Wish is looking to drop over 60% in its second week with around $7-$8 million with a running total of under $50 million after two weeks. I’m not sure what is wrong with Disney, but it needs to be fixed ASAP. And no, having more executives on the sets of your films isn’t the answer Mr. Igor. Hopefully the Pixar release of Inside Out 2 on June 14, 2024 can start to right this ship. 

Rounding out the top five is Napoleon which is looking to drop nearly 65% of its audience from last weeks surprising second place finish. It isn’t a big surprise we are seeing this type of decline from the $200 million budgeted Apple film as the audience score is an abysmal 58% while its cinemascore is a B-. But as we all know, Apple didn’t make this one for theaters, so this run is merely an ad for its eventual streaming release, where we may see an extended 4 hour cut.

Outside of the top five but worth mentioning are the films Animal and The Shift that both play to specific audiences that tend to show up for films that are geared towards them when released. For Animal, the Indian language film is looking at a possible $7 million domestic debut while the faith based The Shift should land in the $5 million range.

Sadly, John Woo’s return to American cinema’s seemed to be a bit muted as his dialogue free Silent Night is looking at a very underwhelming $2.5 million debut. I actually saw this film on Thursday and found it be pretty enjoyable. I will say, despite its title, this is not a film that will fill you with yuletide glee. The film is a far more serious and heartbreaking tale of a father seeking revenge on the gang members who inadvertently murdered his son. If you are looking for some violent merriment to get your holidays started, may I recommend last years ultra violent and ultra fun Violent Night or perhaps just stick with the classic R rated Christmas film: Die Hard! You can check out Chris Bumbray’s 7/10 review of Silent Night here.

Have you had the chance to catch a delightful feature film yet this weekend or is it still in your list of things to do? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check back with us tomorrow when we have a full run down on this weeks box office numbers.