Wonka, Beyonce, and Godzilla (Oh My!) - Weeks 3-6

 So, it’s been a few weeks… Let’s catch-up before the full Holidaze hits.

Over Thanksgiving The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Songbirds and the Snakes continued to be the top dish on everyone’s plate with $42.2 million to bring it’s total to just over $98 million. If that’s not destined to be Top 5 in this “leftovers” of a season, I don’t know what is. 

Napoleon and Wish were around $33 million and $31 million, sort of respectively, over their five-day debuts. Not great starts for films that probably cost $300 million collectively to make. I guess history repeated itself and Napoleon has now lost at Waterloo twice… And Disney Animation might as well just call their next film Lost, but “Disney’s Lost” so as not to confuse it with the TV show.    

The post-Thanksgiving weekend belonged to Queen Bee and King G. Renaissance debuted with $21 million and Godzilla MInus One had the largest American-opening for the fabled Japanese franchise at $11.4 million. The rest of the competition was trampled to death.

The post-post/pre-this one weekend had another huge debut for a Japanese film as the latest animated Hayao Miyazaki film The Boy and The Heron started with $13 million. Renaissance fell 70% in the second weekend, so sadly there were no extended stays needed for that film. 

Finally, this weekend -- We’ve made it to the present! -- Wonka was released on the world and the U.S. Box-office responded with a $39 million weekend. In comparison to the other weekends, it almost feels like double-that! If you’d told me six-months ago that a tap-dancing Timothée Chalamet would get almost a $40 million opening, I’d have said you’re nuts. But in this time-line, in this Holiday Blockbuster Pool, that result would get anyone to sing. 

Wonka’s real potential success lies in how well it can maintain momentum over the Christmas and New Year’s weekends. If it plays out like The Greatest Showman or Les Misérables, slow starters that just kept going, there’s greatness ahead. If it runs out of flavor like Juicy Fruit gum, this thing is going to be spit out fast. 

We’ll see what happens!

 

The Top Five If Today Was MLK Day:

#1. The Hunger Games: TBoS&S - $145.3

#2. Trolls Band Together - $88.6 million

#3. The Marvels - $84 million

#4. Napoleon - $57.1 million

#5. Wish - $54.2. million