Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekends are typically quite successful at the box office, as people wind up their festivities and head out for some entertainment. Fittingly, there was a full buffet to choose from, for any taste. First, there was last week’s champ The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the latest cinematic adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ successful book series. For families, there was Disney’s new animated musical Wish, meant to celebrate the studio’s 100th anniversary. Meanwhile, another ambitious historical drama, Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, attempted to make waves and build up buzz for awards season. So who won these Hunger Games?
It looks as though the strong word of mouth from last week was enough to keep Songbirds and Snakes at #1 for a second frame. Of course, it helps that school is out and, more importantly, college, so the young female audience is more able to get to the cinema. In the case of college students, many are back in their hometowns, reconnecting with friends — friends that they probably grew up loving The Hunger Games alongside — so this allowed them to share a new take on something they have loved since they were much younger.
However, in an upset, Napoleon took the #2 spot, possibly thanks to the fact that this film monopolized the large format screens which account for inflated ticket prices. This film, produced by Apple, comes shortly after the release of another lengthy historical drama (also from Apple), Killers of the Flower Moon, which simply didn’t perform very well.
But Flower Moon was an hour longer, limiting the number of times it could be screened and, quite frankly, it looked like a bummer. On the other hand, Napoleon is being marketed as an action-packed war epic. The trailers for it were just more exciting.
Working in Napoleon‘s favor is that the target audience is the exact opposite of that of Songbirds and Snakes — older men. Quite frankly, Napoleon is for Civil War book-reading dads, and like younger females, there isn’t much out there for them.
Despite the better performance by Napoleon, it appears that Flower Moon is the better movie. Napoleon received a Rotten Tomatoes score of 61% and an even worse audience score of 59%. Exiting audiences gave it a B- CinemaScore and a 72% positive PostTrak, as opposed to Flower Moon‘s RT score of 92%, 84% audience score, A- CinemaScore, and 88% positive PostTrak.
Napoleon‘s success meant another disappointment for Disney. Their latest animated musical Wish was expected to come in at #1. It has landed at #3 with only $31.7M over five days. In June, Elemental disappointed with a $33M opening over four days, and well… this is worse than that.
Now Elemental went on to have legs and did okay over time, but it got great reactions from viewers with a 92% RT audience score, A CinemaScore, and 85% positive PostTrak. Its RT critical score wasn’t as good at 76%.
Could the same happen for Wish? It’s possible. Its CinemaScore is just under that of Elemental at A-. Its Comscore is 4.5 out of 5 stars. Its RT audience score is lower at 81%, as is its critical score at 50%.
Impacting Wish‘s performance is the fact that Trolls Band Together just came out last weekend and is still going strong. Both movies target essentially the same demographic. In its sophomore frame, it took in $17.5M over three days and $25.3M over five.
Fittingly, Eli Roth’s latest, Thanksgiving rounded out the Top Five.
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- Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (Lionsgate) – 3-day $28.8M/ 5-day $41.1M/ Total $98.3M / Wk 2
- Napoleon (Apple/Sony) – 3-day $20.4M/ 5-day $32.5M/ Wk 1
- Wish (Disney) – 3 day $19.5M/ 5-day $31.7M/ Wk 1
- Trolls Band Together (Universal/Dreamworks) – 3-day $17.5M/ 5-day $25.3M/ Total $64.4M/ Wk 2
- Thanksgiving (Sony) – 3-day $7.1M/ 5-day $11.1M/ Total $24.1M/ Wk 2
As mentioned, Thanksgiving played a big part in the performances of this week’s movies domestically, but since the rest of the world doesn’t celebrate, the outcome was much different globally with Napoleon actually being #1 with $78.8M, double the openings of both Flower Moon and Ridley Scott’s own House of Gucci.
Globally, Wish was #2 with $49M, and Songbirds and Snakes landed at #3 with $26.2M.
Unfortunately, as you can see there is yet more bad news for Disney. In only its third weekend, The Marvels has fallen out of the Top Five, landing in sixth place. Over three days, it earned an additional $6.4M, and over five, it generated $9.4M.
This weekend looks to belong to Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé, although it won’t come close to the numbers posted by Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.
The next big attraction will be Wonka which hits theaters on December 15. That will be followed by Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom on the 22nd and The Color Purple and Ferrari on the 25th.
How do you plan to wrap up the year?
