Box Office Report for the Week of January 21

Here we are again, with another weekend at the domestic box office. While the 2024 Mean Girls remake is staying at the top spot, it also saw a sharp decrease in attendance, with a 59% drop and an $11 million tally at the domestic box office.

The only major release this weekend is the sci-fi drama I.S.S., starring Ariana DeBose and Chris Messina, which landed at the seventh spot this weekend with a meager $3.0 million tally. Ava DuVernay finally had Origin debut in select theatres, with a pretty decent $875.000 in only 125 venues, with a planned expansion on January 26.

Next week will see no American tentpoles release in cinemas, with all eyes set on Siddharth Anand‘s latest, Fighter, likely hit the top ten. The combination of Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone will likely make a big impression at the North American box office, with Anand being one of the biggest names in Bollywood, attracting top talent to his films.

Of course, some box office experts will blame this lack of new releases on January being January, and they are correct. However, last year’s January was far more stacked than this year’s, with M3GAN, Plane, and Missing, to name just a few. This year’s January has, more than ever, been the result of the six-month-long writer’s and actor’s strike, with plenty of projects delayed and a total shutdown of all film and television productions. The good news is that the actor’s strike was resolved in November, with most films and television series having resumed filming, but the bad news for exhibitors is that they will have to wait for a long time before they make their way to the screen.

Some 2023 films were re-released in premium large formats and IMAX this month, with Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse making up for the lack of new movies this month, and a one-night-only reissue of Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune with a sneak preview of Dune: Part Two on January 24.

Cinemas have also relied more on international fare to draw audiences, and the gamble has paid off for Cineplex, which saw a 10% increase in sales of international movies, with Sandeep Reddy Venga‘s Animal now being their highest-grossing international film ever. The only bright side that the strike has brought for film critics and journalists is they are now quasi-forced to seek out independent and international cinema, which are, most of the time, more creative and cinematically relevant than the mega-budget blockbusters that Hollywood is churning out. And the proof is in the pudding: while most Hollywood tentpoles flopped, mid-budget films and international fare have done extremely well in North America over the past year and likely will continue to do so this year as cinemas recover from the effects of the strikes.

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

1. Mean Girls (Paramount): $11.7M (-59.1%) – 3,826 theatres
2. The Beekeeper (Amazon MGM Studios): $8.4M (-48.8%) – 3,330 theatres
3. Wonka (Warner Bros): $6.4M (-23.9%) – 3,136 theatres
4. Anyone But You (Sony): $5.4M (-24.2%) – 2,928 theatres
5. Migration (Universal): $5.3M (-15%) – 3,094 theatres
6. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (Warner Bros/DC): $3.6M (-30.4%) – 2,423 theatres
7. I.S.S. (Bleecker Street): $3.0M – 2,518 theatres
8. Night Swim (Universal): $2.7M (-41.8%) – 2,708 theatres
9. The Boys in the Boat (Amazon MGM Studios): $2.5M (-26.2%) – 2,012 theatres
10. Poor Things (Disney): $2.0M (+14.2%) – 1,400 theatres

Source: Box Office Mojo