Box Office Report for the Week of November 5

With Dune: Part Two off the calendar, this weekend was relatively quiet at the movies. Sofia Coppola‘s Priscilla was the only “major” release of the week, expanding in more than 1,355 theatres and grossing over $5.0 million on a $20 million budget. The film likely benefited from a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement given to stars Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi to promote the movie alongside Coppola, sending the stars to Venice and giving them a press tour. If the strike does not settle soon, productions with interim agreements will also benefit from FYC campaigns, while other films won’t be able to campaign with their actors, with Spaeny a potential contender for Best Actress.

Another film benefitting from the interim agreement is Meg Ryan‘s What Happens Later, grossing over $1.6 million on a small $3 million budget. It’ll easily turn a profit with such a small budget, while movies like The Marsh King’s Daughter struggled to make the top ten this weekend without the presence of Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn in the public eye. The film finished in thirteenth, making a meager $849.120 in 1,055 theatres. Not a great start to a movie with incredible star power attached to it.

The winner of this weekend’s box office was, once again, Five Nights at Freddy’s. While box office gross plummeted from a historic $79 million opening to Blumhouse to a mild $19 million this weekend, due in part to overwhelmingly negative reviews and availability on Peacock, the film will still end up being one of the most profitable of 2023, in a year filled with mega-blockbusters flopping on the big screen and struggling to turn a profit.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is still making a splash and barely dropping from week to week, making over $13 million in its fourth week, while large-scale blockbusters are having difficulty finding their audiences in cinemas. The Marvels will likely end up being the highest-grossing movie of next weekend, but will it be profitable? I’m rather doubtful of that prospect, but that Echo trailer was certainly excellent.

Here is the full list of the top ten films of the weekend:

1. Five Nights at Freddy’s (Universal/Peacock): $19.3M (-75.8%) – 3,789 theatres
2. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Variance Films): $13.5M (-12.5%) – 3,604 theatres
3. Killers of the Flower Moon (Paramount/Apple TV+): $7.0M (-24.9%) – 3,786 theatres
4. Priscilla (A24): $5.0M (+3,747.9%) – 1,359 theatres
5. Radical (Pantelion Films): $2.7M – 419 theatres
6. The Exorcist: Believer (Universal): $2.1M (-34.1%) – 2,429 theatres
7. After Death (Angel Studios): $2.0M (-60.4%) – 2,730 theatres
8. PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (Paramount): $1.9M (-15.3%) – 2,404 theatres
9. What Happens Later (Bleecker Street): $1.5M – 1,492 theatres
10. Freelance (Relativity Media): $1.2M (-40.1%) – 2,057 theatres

Source: Box Office Mojo