Box Ofice Report for the Week of January 19

It was a relatively slow weekend at the box office this weekend, with two new releases experiencing varying degrees of success. Arguably, the biggest winner of the week is Lawrence Lamont’s One of Them Days, which not only received incredible reviews (it is currently sitting at a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes) but has also made its $14 million budget back in a single weekend! The film made over $11.6 million domestically, but its global cume has put it at the exact number of the budget. 

I was slightly wary of the movie’s quality when the promotional screening in my area was surprisingly canceled. However, I can tell why audiences resonate with the film after seeing it. Keke Palmer and SZA make an electrifying comedic duo, with Abbott Elementary veterans Janelle James and Keyla Monterroso Mejia stealing the show in several key scenes. It’s a simply executed but hilarious ride that will have you grinning ear to ear from beginning to end. Since there aren’t many studio comedies out in the post-COVID era we live in, the movie does have a chance to leg out in the weeks to come. 

On the flip side, the weekend’s biggest release, Wolf Man, failed to muster up any real excitement from the audience. With mixed reviews, the film landed in relatively empty venues and made a relatively unimpressive $10.5 million domestically, with a global tally of $16.8 million. Since its budget was relatively small, as it is the case with most Blumhouse productions, it won’t hurt as badly for Universal as other productions, but it is still a disappointment compared to Leigh Whannell’s previous modernization of a Universal monster with The Invisible Man, which was the last critical and commercial success before COVID upended the movie industry. 

In other news, Moana 2 has now officially crossed the $1 billion mark, making it the third 2024 film to achieve this milestone, with Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine, which are also Disney movies. It took some time for it to reach this number, but it has now beaten the original’s $687 million cume and has all but ensured a sequel will be made in the not-too-distant future, perhaps after the planned Thomas Kail-directed remake bows out in cinemas next year. 

Will 2025 be another great year for Disney at the box office? I don’t have a crystal ball, but their first film out of the gate, Captain America: Brave New World, faces numerous controversies and behind-the-scenes drama. Some rumors could be true, and others untrue, but it definitely won’t be as smooth of a sailing as Deadpool & Wolverine’s commercial success was last year. While that movie was heavily criticized, the road to $1 billion wasn’t faced with as many hurdles as the next Captain America installment has. Still, the prospect of seeing Harrison Ford as Red Hulk tantalizes me enough for me to buy an IMAX 3D ticket on opening weekend, so they’ve at least got one moviegoer attending. The rest, we’ll have to see…

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

1. One of Them Days (Sony): $11.6M – 2,675 theatres
2. Mufasa: The Lion King (Disney): $11.5M (-19%) – 3,555 theatres
3. Wolf Man (Universal): $10.5M – 3,354 theatres
4. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Paramount): $8.6M (-24%) – 3,306 theatres
5. Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (Lionsgate): $6.6M (-56%) – 3,008 theatres
6. Moana 2 (Disney): $6.0M (-7%) – 2,825 theatres
7. Nosferatu (Universal): $4.3M (-38%) – 2,545 theatres
8. A Complete Unknown (Disney): $3.7M (-26%) – 2,500 theatres
9. Wicked (Universal): $3.5M (-31%) – 2,352 theatres
10. Babygirl (A24): $2.0M (-34%) – 1,460 theatres

Source: Comscore