Box Office Report for the Week of December 7

The movies are back! At least, the past few weeks have been incredibly refreshing for exhibitors who have seen renewed interest in the big screen, with films such as Wicked: For Good, Zootopia 2, and now Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. With Avatar: Fire and Ash screening for the press over the past week and poised to be a commercial juggernaut (its awards chances are still to be determined) there’s a real opportunity for moviegoers to stick it to Netflix and go to the cinema, to show what they’ve been missing.

The streamer has been incredibly stubborn and antagonistic towards moviegoers and theater exhibitors as of late, which was a problem in and of itself but is now of much bigger significance with the shocking (read: catastrophic) news that they are on the process of acquiring the film and television divisions of Warner Bros, who, just this year, have made more than $4.5 billion this year with the combined grosses of A Minecraft Movie, Sinners, Final Destination Bloodlines, F1, Superman, Weapons, The Conjuring: Last Rites, and One Battle After Another, with the latter positioned as the frontrunner to win the Academy Award for Best Picture next year.

We’ll see if Netflix is successful in getting the deal through, but there already seems to be some pushback across many areas. As cinemas are making a grand comeback, news like this is certainly not good for cinemas that have been wanting more windows and fewer streamers truncating them into meaningless “for awards consideration” opportunities. In the case of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, the sequel was released exclusively in cinemas, unlike the first installment, which had a day-and-date streaming and theatrical release.

Despite overwhelmingly negative reviews, the film opened to $63 million at the domestic box office and a global tally of $109 million, likely ensuring a third entry will be greenlit. Blumhouse understood the importance of theatrical windows and ensured the sequel wouldn’t repeat the release mistakes of the first film, given consumer shifts in the post-COVID era of 2023. Two years later, it’s looking to be their most profitable film for what has otherwise been a wobbly year for the horror-driven studio.

As for Zootopia 2, Disney is warming up for the Avatar: Fire and Ash takeover, with the movie surpassing the $900 million mark this weekend and poised to end its run with over $1.4 billion worldwide. If this occurs, the movie would become the second-highest-grossing film of the year, behind Ne Zha 2, and the live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch, which Disney also distributed, would fall in third place. With James Cameron making his return in two weeks from now, there’s potential for Fire and Ash to surpass Ne Zha 2‘s tally, but is Avatar fatigue truly a real thing, or are people still doubting Big Jim? In this case, there’s only one way to find out…

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

1. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (Universal): $63.0M – 3,412 theatres
2. Zootopia 2 (Disney): $43.0M (-57%) – 4,000 theatres
3. Wicked: For Good (Universal): $16.7M (-73%) – 3,985 theatres
4. Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution (GKIDS): $10.1M – 2,629 theatres
5. Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (Lionsgate): $3.5M (-49%) – 2,629 theatres
6. Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (Lionsgate): $3.2M – 1,198 theatres
7. Eternity (A24): $2.7M (-14%) – 2,386 theatres
8. Hamnet (Universal): $2.3M (+147%) – 744 theatres
9. Dhurandhar (Moviegoers Entertainment Ltd): $1.9M – 390 theatres
10. Predator: Badlands (Disney): $1.8M (-61%) – 2,080 theatres

Source: Comscore