November is a good slow start to the holiday season with things really getting underway at Thanksgiving but there are a number of things that are brought out earlier to try and jumpstart things a bit more. This weekend saw three new films going wide and they were met with some mixed success overall. The big winner is The Grinch from Illumination, coming nearly twenty years after the previous live-action version. The film did a $66 million debut in North America and added $12.7 million overseas with a limited rollout. It’s hitting a lot of territories over the next month or so targeting the “traditional” start of the Christmas season there. It garnered an “A-” CinemaScore that will help and has an almost even gender split.
Also new this week was Overlord from Paramount where the WWII horror film landed at $10 million with its R-rating. It wasn’t expected to be huge, especially after the month of horror that was October, and with a $28 million production it’ll do well in the long run. It did $9 million overseas so it’ll chug along nicely even with a “B” CinemaScore.
Sony’s release of The Girl in the Spider’s Web wasn’t able to capture the attention of the prior film as it did just $8 million and got a “B” CinemaScore. It’s playing to a mostly split gendered audience but trending to the twenty-five and older crowd, so it could do decent on the weeknight side of things. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo arrived back in 2011 with a $12 million debut but went on to mat $100 million domestically and another $130 million internationally. The international side so far is just $8 million, so it’s got a long road ahead of it. On the plus side, the budget this time around is $43 million and not the $90 million of the previous film.
Music continues to do well for a few films as Bohemian Rhapsody ended up in second this time around with another $31 million which on top of the $50 million last weekend and just under $20 million during the week brings it to $100 million. It’s doing well overseas with another $63 million and a worldwide take of $285 million so far. A Star is Born had another great hold with a 27% drop to bring in another $8 million and the sixth place spot where it’s at $178 million domestic.
And for a continued look, Venom added some nice coin during the week and with this weekend it added another $4.85 million to help it cross the $200 million mark domestically. Where it really shined, however, is in China where it did $111 million this weekend and marks the biggest debut for a Sony film there. That now puts its worldwide total at $675 million – which is $50 million more than Ant-Man and the Wasp this year.
Next weekend should be pretty interesting to see what holds and what steps up as Fantastic Beatss: The Crimes of Grindelwald is arriving from Warner Bros. in over 4,000 screens. It’ll be interesting to see what this does now that the first film has been through theatrical, home video, and premium cable output. Paramount is putting Instant Family into 3,000 screens while Fox goes for a crime thriller with Widows in 3,000 screens.
| # | Title | Distributor Name | Weekend Total | # of Locs | Loc Avg | Cume Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch | Universal | $66,000,000 | 4,141 | $15,938 | $66,000,000 |
| 2 | Bohemian Rhapsody | 20th Century Fox | $30,850,000 | 4,000 | $7,712 | $100,010,548 |
| 3 | Overlord | Paramount | $10,100,000 | 2,859 | $3,533 | $10,100,000 |
| 4 | Nutcracker And The Four Realms, The | Disney | $9,565,000 | 3,766 | $2,540 | $35,256,534 |
| 5 | Girl In The Spider’s Web, The | Sony | $8,015,000 | 2,929 | $2,736 | $8,015,000 |
| 6 | Star Is Born, A | Warner Bros. | $8,010,000 | 2,848 | $2,812 | $178,020,388 |
| 7 | Nobody’s Fool | Paramount | $6,540,000 | 2,468 | $2,650 | $24,276,108 |
| 8 | Venom | Sony | $4,850,000 | 2,351 | $2,063 | $206,233,603 |
| 9 | Halloween | Universal | $3,840,000 | 2,717 | $1,413 | $156,809,845 |
| 10 | Hate U Give, The | 20th Century Fox | $2,070,000 | 1,108 | $1,868 | $26,705,883 |
| 11 | Smallfoot | Warner Bros. | $1,505,000 | 1,318 | $1,142 | $80,306,553 |
| 12 | Can You Ever Forgive Me? | Fox Searchlight | $1,475,000 | 391 | $3,772 | $3,609,977 |
