OPENINGS: CREED III (UA/MGM/Amazon) launched with an impressive $58.7M, higher than the 5-day Thanksgiving weekend starts for the previous entries in the series ($42.1M/$56M), and also higher than any of the Rocky movies (not adjusted for inflation). As is typical for this franchise, overseas was somewhat softer, with $41.8M from 75 markets. Nevertheless, the mid-budgeted Creed III should be quite profitable.
DEMON SLAYER: TO THE SWORDSMITH VILLAGE (Crunchyroll/Sony) wasn’t as strong as its predecessor, with $10.1M compared to the $21.2M start for 2021’s Mugen Train. The genre tends to be front-loaded, so the US total may not be much higher than $20M. Internationally, $23.4M of the $25M total is from Japan.
OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE (Lionsgate) was caught up in original US distributor STX’s bankruptcy proceedings, and rushed onto the release schedule with little notice and limited marketing. The result was a subpar $3.2M launch, with little chance that the US total will come near the $30.8M Fortune has earned overseas.
HOLDOVERS: Now that the studios are releasing major titles on a weekly basis, we’re starting to see holdovers (barring a pair of long-running blockbusters) taking the kind of larger hits that were the pre-pandemic norm. ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA (Marvel/Disney) fell 61% to $12.5M in its 3rd weekend, and now seems unlikely to get much past $225M in the US. That would be less than $10M higher than Ant-Man & The Wasp‘s US total, even though Quantumania had a $30M larger opening weekend. Things were worse overseas, where Quantumania has $232.7M after a $22M weekend in 52 territories, not close to Ant-Man & The Wasp‘s $406M international total.
COCAINE BEAR (Universal) dropped 53% from last week’s premiere to $11M, still on its way to a very solid $70M in the US. However, overseas is at only $10.7M.
Christian-themed movies tend to hold unusually well at the box office, but that’s not proving to be the case for JESUS REVOLUTION (Lionsgate), which lost 46% to $8.7M in its 2nd weekend. (By comparison, the same director’s I Can Only Imagine slipped 20% in Weekend 2 and American Underdog was down 33%.) A US total over $50M would still be a tidy result for the low-budget production. It hasn’t yet opened overseas.
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (20th/Disney) resisted the pull of large box office drops, down just 26% to $3.6M in its 12th weekend, and likely to top $680M in the US. That would put it at #7 all-time, above Avengers: Infinity War. It’s already at #3 worldwide, with $1.61B overseas after a $6.1M weekend in 52 markets.
PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH (DreamWorks Animation/Universal, also on VOD/Peacock) had another strong hold, down 34% to $2.7M in its 11th weekend, and on its way to $185M in the US. The overseas total is $276.4M.
MAGIC MIKE’S LAST DANCE (Warners, also on VOD) tumbled by 59% to $1.2M in its 4th weekend, and may not reach $30M in the US, with an additional $27M overseas. That might bring it near breakeven.
LIMITED RELEASE: RETURN TO SEOUL (Sony Classics) expanded to 38 theaters with a $2400 weekend per-theater average. THE QUIET GIRL (Neon) widened to 18 with a $4K average.
NEXT WEEKEND: There was a time when studios kept their major releases off Oscar weekend, but as the ratings have declined, there no longer seems to be a worry of distracted moviegovers. The big release is SCREAM VI (Paramount), with 65 (Columbia/Sony) and CHAMPIONS (Focus/Universal) as competition.
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