Weekend Box Office: Glass Onion shocks, Strange World tanks and Black Panther tops

Thanksgiving is behind us, the fridge is filled with leftovers that will sit there for a week until they start to smell and you just throw them away, and the big Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend numbers are here! 

No big surprise in first place as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever took first place for a third week in a row with an estimated take of $45.9 million. That represents a pretty decent hold for the blockbuster sequel. The $250 million budgeted sequel needed to hit the $600 million mark to even begin scratching at any sort of profit, and the good news is world wide numbers have this one very near that magical number. Of course with no China release in the pipeline, I’m not sure how much higher this one will fly. But overall, solid numbers for a movie that tragically lost its main star and had to figure out how to move the story forward.

Second place (or really third place, but we’ll get to that) belongs to another Disney movie, Strange World with an estimated 3-day take of $11.9 million. Obviously these are not the numbers Disney was hoping for when they slotted this $180 million budgeted film for the usually lucrative Thanksgiving weekend. In my original predictions I could already see the writing on the wall for this one, saying it could be a massive bomb and as a fan of movies, I’m never happy to see a movie tank. There will be lots of articles written about what went wrong with this one over the next week, but I think the biggest factors are: the marketing didn’t really make this one look all that great while Disney is cannibalizing their own audience because they were so focused on making sure Disney+ was a hit, that when it comes to their animated films at least, they kind of cut off their own nose to spite their face, with their face being theatrically released films. Family audiences, like the type that would go spend a Saturday at the movies, have come to expect that they can just wait a month and change and watch the movie in their own homes for the $10 monthly fee rather than spend 10 times that to go to the theater. Even worse is that the audiences that did go see this one in theaters gave it the lowest Cinemascore (B) ever for a Disney Animated Film, dating all the way back to 1991 when Beauty and the Beast was given an A.

One movie that isn’t having that same problem is Netflix’s unprecedented release of Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery which saw a very solid 3-day take of $13.3 million. I know in that last paragraph I railed against short Theatrical to streaming windows, and with Glass Onion, everyone (who has a Netflix subscription) will be able to watch this one in their own homes beginning on December 23. But that really isn’t an apples to apples comparison. Strange World is a big Disney Animated movie while Glass Onion is the sequel to a massively successful Oscar nominated film that is only in theaters for one week. Add to that, that it is an unprecedented move by a studio that has generally only rented out a few theaters to give their films Oscar qualifying runs and has never reported numbers for those limited runs (which may be a tradition the studio is continuing as the official top ten released by Comscore does not feature Glass Onion on its list despite its true second place finish.)

I think Netflix has the makings of becoming a major player in the movie studio game, but they have to embrace some age old traditions such as a traditional theatrical release. If they can release a film in theaters for the standard 90 day window, that release can pull in big numbers and give the film a huge boost for when it debuts on their service. So many of their movies seem to just get released, spend a week in their own company run “Top Ten” and then disappear forever. Theatrical releases can give these films the numbers they deserve along with the press that will build anticipation for when it premieres on the service 3 months later and then when the movie seems to have faded from the public consciousness, boom, you release it on physical media which in turn brings back attention to a movie that is potentially a year old at that point. Just a thought! Mr. Sarandos, feel free to have your people get in touch with my people (aka: me) and we can discuss me taking over as your head of Theatrical distribution/ marketing! 

Next on the list looks to be the high flying Korean War film Devotion with a 3-day take of $6 million. With two stars in Jonathan Majors and Glenn Powell that are knocking on that A-Lister door, and solid reviews (including an 8/10 review from our own Chris Bumbray) this one may have decent legs at the box office, but it has a ways to go before it will come close to its reported $90 million budget.

Next up is The Menu with a 3-day take of $5.2 million. Losing just 42% of its audience, this well reviewed film is benefitting from solid word of mouth (including my own: go see this movie, it is phenomenal!) The market is flooded with movies aimed at adult audiences right now, so it is encouraging that something like The Menu is doing solid business. Although it does have a bit to go before it can recoup its reported $30 million budget.

Black Adam comes next with a 3-day take of $3.3 million in its sixth week of release. With a $200 million budget and just over $370 million at the worldwide box office, I think the ship has sailed on this one being considered a hit. With James Gunn and Peter Safran taking over the DC Universe, there have been reports that Gunn and Johnson have not exactly been seeing eye to eye on the future of Black Adam in the DC Universe. We will just have to wait until they lay out their 8-10 year plan they have been working on.

The next two on the list look to the be the expansions of two Oscar hopefuls, coming in slightly ahead is Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans with a 3-day take of $2.22 million. Sadly this looks to be another underperformer for the legendary filmmaker. While the cannibal love story Bones and All pulled in $2.20 million. You can expect these two to have decent holds as award season pushes on, but with such low wide starts, we won’t be looking at earth shattering final numbers. Bones and All has it a bit better as the film has a reported $16-20 million budget while Fabelmans has a bit of an uphill climb with a reported $40 million budget.

Rounding out the list is the continued success of Ticket To Paradise with a 3-day take of $1.8 million while The Chosen: Season 3- Episodes 1&2 continue its successful limited launch with a $1.5 million 3-day take. Even though that represents a massive 82% drop, that’s still impressive numbers for a theatrical release of two episodes of a TV series! While the official list gives She Said a spot in the top ten with a $1.1 million weekend.

Were you able to make it to theaters this holiday weekend? If so let us know what you saw in the comments and don’t forget to check out our Poll where we ask what Your Favorite Box Office Bomb is.