Box Office Report for the Week of December 15

Before the holidays are in full swing next week with the potential financial juggernaut that could be Mufasa: The Lion King, this weekend wasn’t as fruitful for cinemas compared to the past few weekends. Still, Moana 2 and Wicked continue adding more to their box office tally, with respective cumulative earnings of $717 million and $524 million globally.

But the two new major releases of Kraven the Hunter and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim predictably didn’t do very well. For Kraven, it’s the nail in the coffin for the Sony Spider-Man Universe, which, beyond Venom, has been a massive laughing stock from both critics and comic book fans. With a $110-130 million price tag, the R-rated J.C. Chandor-directed film only made $11 million at the domestic box office, a sign that not every superhero movie will sell if there isn’t justification for audiences to see them on the big screen.

The Venom movies did relatively well, thanks to Tom Hardy‘s ineffable chemistry with his alien buddy, but anything else was repeatedly mocked at (*coughsMorbiuscoughs*) without any tickets being sold. I went to the advanced IMAX screening of Kraven the Hunter, and the audience reactions were probably the opposite of what Sony expected, with the sold-out crowd laughing at the movie, and not with it. When such reactions occur at a preview showing, you’d be sure this film will be dead on arrival.

Conversely, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim may have disappointed, with only a $4.6 million domestic tally and made far less money than Kraven the Hunter, but it did not cost as much as Sony’s film. The film’s budget was small, because development fast-tracked so that Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema could retain the film rights to J.R.R. Tolkien‘s texts. Perhaps it wasn’t a great idea in isolation, and the film will certainly be forgotten very soon, but its $30 million price tag ensures that The Lord of the Rings’ financial situation won’t be as bad as Sony causing lasting damage to superhero filmmaking…

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

1. Moana 2 (Disney): $26.6M (-48%) – 4,000 theatres
2. Wicked (Universal): $22.5M (-38%) – 3,689 theatres
3. Kraven the Hunter (Sony/Marvel): $11.0M – 3,211 theatres
4. Gladiator II (Paramount): $7.8M (-38%) – 3,224 theatres
5. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (Warner Bros.): $4.6M – 2,602 theatres
6. Red One (Amazon MGM Studios): $4.4M (-36%) – 3,003 theatres
7. Interstellar (Paramount): $3.3M (-28%) – 321 theatres
8. Pushpa 2: The Rule (Prathyangira Cinemas): $1.6M (-68%) – 665 theatres
9. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Lionsgate): $1.3M (-10%) – 1,519 theatres
10. Queer (A24): $790.594 (+89%) – 460 theatres

Source: Comscore