Maxance Vincent
On this Thanksgiving weekend, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes enjoyed one of the best holds we have seen all year, keeping the number one spot at $28.8 million despite mixed reviews. Perhaps the word of mouth from audiences convinced many to give it a shot, and it looks like it has worked in their favor (see what I did there?).
This year, the Disney empire celebrates its 100th anniversary, and while it could’ve been a year filled with critically and commercially acclaimed movies to celebrate that milestone year, none of their titles have done particularly well, save for Elemental and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3. The bad streak unfortunately continues with Wish, their animated film that would celebrate the legacy left behind by Walt Disney and how the company evolved in these 100 years.
I have not yet seen the movie, but Disney has usually enjoyed great success creating an animated film every year on Thanksgiving weekend. Unfortunately, the company experienced a massive bomb with Strange World last year, and now Wish underperforming expectations, making only $19.5 million domestically during the weekend. The 5-day tally will likely be stronger, but this isn’t the result Disney wanted, especially with a movie that is poised to celebrate its legacy. The reviews haven’t been the best either, while Strange World enjoyed mostly positive word of mouth, making it a moderate success on Disney+.
It’s not a great sign for Disney when the film got easily beaten by a streaming movie, with Ridley Scott‘s Napoleon taking the crown as one of the biggest theatrical successes of any streaming movie this year. I am positively hopeful the film’s staggering $20.4 million 3-day tally and $78.8 million global cume will convince Netflix to finally wake up and stop sending their prestige films to arthouse theatres for a truncated run only to qualify for Oscars.
We’re going to have to see how it will leg out with the arrival of Beyoncé and Godzilla next week, but a film that wasn’t initially destined for theatres that not only had a massive release in PLF/IMAX and exceeded all commercial expectations, despite a mixed word of mouth, is a massive win for Apple Studios’ biggest gamble since its inception.
Emerald Fennell‘s Saltburn, which expanded in more theatres this weekend, also made quite the splash (pun absolutely intended) with a $1.7 million tally. Amazon initially set the film to release in select theatres before landing on Prime Video, but after restructuring its company to Amazon MGM Studios, it got a full-fledged theatrical run before eventually dropping on the streaming service. And since word of mouth on that one is all over the place, the buzz created from its festival run saw people flock to the theater and discover its madness for themselves.
Meanwhile, Netflix released both Maestro and Leave the World Behind in select (very select; the latter film played only for a day at my local cinema, which I managed to catch, while Maestro releases here on the 8th) theatres this weekend with little to no fanfare. It’s strange: the former is a massive contender for this year’s Awards season, and the latter boasts a star-studded ensemble featuring Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, and Ethan Hawke. Based on the nearly sold-out theater at my Leave the World Behind showing, it’s clear people want to see these movies in a theatrical environment, and there’s hope Saltburn and Napoleon‘s commercial tallies could potentially convince Netflix to wake up and pivot their strategies.
Here is the full list of the top ten films of the weekend:
- The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (Lionsgate): $28.8M (-35.4%) – 3,776 theatres
- Napoleon (Sony/Apple TV+): $20.4M – 3,500 theatres
- Wish (Disney): $19.5M – 3,900 theatres
- Trolls Band Together (Universal): $17.5M (-41.6%) – 3,893 theatres
- Thanksgiving (Sony): $7.2M (-29.4%) – 3,204 theatres
- The Marvels (Disney): $6.4M (-36.8%) – 3,070 theatres
- The Holdovers (Universal): $2.7M (+2%) – 1,601 theatres
- Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Variance Films): $2.3M (-15.6%) – 946 theatres
- Five Nights at Freddy’s (Universal/Peacock): $1.75M (-50.8%) – 1,754 theatres
- Saltburn (Amazon MGM Studios): $1.73M (+437.7%) – 1,566 theatres
Source: Box Office Mojo
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