Box Office Report for the Week of November 17

Well, I was wrong about Venom: The Last Dance staying at the number one spot for a final weekend before the Wickedator double feature next week (side note: Gladiator II has already made $87 million internationally, Ridley Scott‘s best-ever international opening!). The movie fell down for the first time since its release with a $7.4 million tally, though its global cume is now at $436.1 million. Perhaps not as strong as the first two movies, but a hit nonetheless.

In the meantime, audiences chose Jake Kasdan‘s Red One this weekend, though not by a lot. The movie made a fairly decent $34 million…had it cost around $70 to $80 million. Instead, the christmas actioner starring Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, and J.K. Simmons cost a whopping…$250 million. Even worse, its initial price tag ballooned to compensate for The Rock arriving 7 to 8 hours late on set, and going so far as to pee in water bottles. One may think such an explosive report may turn out to be false, but The Rock himself admitted to being late (and, yes, peeing in bottles) during its red carpet premiere, though not as extensive as the report made it out to be.

Whether or not he’s telling the truth about his tardiness, the movie did have an expensive price tag, yet it didn’t look like so, and the reviews were….not-so-nice, to say the least, with many critics going so far as to call it the cinematic equivalent of a lump of coal. As a result, even by opening at the top of the ten this weekend, Red One will likely drop catastrophically come next week, and even worse when Moana 2 gets the families who didn’t want to see Wicked out of their couches.

Meanwhile, Awards season darlings are still going strong, with The Wild Robot and Conclave holding out and barely dropping from week to week. They are right now the highest-grossing Oscar contenders we have seen this season, with Anora still finding audiences with a $1.1 million tally this weekend. Jesse Eisenberg‘s A Real Pain is now our new addition to the top ten, with a $2.3 million tally after expanding to over 1,185 theatres, a 681% increase from last week’s opening.

As we enter the final weeks of the moviegoing year, we will see lots of blockbusters go big, and Awards darlings carve a path in the top ten. Whether or not they will materialize in any nominations remains to be seen, but it will always be interesting to see who comes out on top!

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

1. Red One (Amazon MGM Studios): $34M – 4,032 theatres
2. Venom: The Last Dance (Sony/Marvel): $7.4M (-54%) – 3,421 theatres
3. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Lionsgate): $5.4M (-50%) – 3,020 theatres
4. Heretic (A24): $5.2M (-52%) – 3,230 theatres
5. The Wild Robot (Universal): $4.3M (-35%) – 2,894 theatres
6. Smile 2 (Paramount): $3.0M (-42%) – 2,462 theatres
7. Conclave (Universal): $2.9M (-31%) – 2,377 theatres
8. Hello, Love, Again (Abramorama): $2.32M – 250 theatres
9. A Real Pain (Disney): $2.3M (+681%) – 1,185 theatres
10. Anora (NEON): $1.1M (-47%) – 1,500 theatres

Source: Comscore