The second weekend of December 2023 has come with another nary sense of “awaiting the next blockbuster,” so the demographically small and large dominated the box office numbers. Warner Brothers already threw Wonka overseas, resulting in $43.2 million, a promising start for the Timothee Chalamet-led prequel, which could become this season’s Sing 2 (or The Greatest Showman) if legs prove worthwhile. Some are at odds to see whether Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (releases December 22) crashes and burns like many other superhero movies this year or has a chance to leg out a la Spider-Man: No Way Home. Time will tell.
Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron has blossomed with $12.8 million on this relatively quiet weekend while acquiring $73.4 million overseas. For someone who claimed they retired a decade ago, this is a wondrous return to form for Miyazaki and the first time a Japanese anime feature has topped the box office. Anime has sprung itself to life in recent memory, be it Michael B. Jordan’s inspiration for the fight scenes in this year’s Creed III or John Wick 4, to create another imaginative/”coming to life” sensation to pop the screen once again. I wonder when that last was the case (Avengers: Endgame or Avatar: The Way of Water in recent memory). Waitress: The Musical was the other release of this weekend, a stirring tribute to Adrienne Shelly, and it earned $3.23 million.
In other news, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes continues to hold very well (akin to Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts, Frozen II, various Hunger Games predecessors, and Twilight movies), dipping 33% in its fourth weekend. It’s on pace to reach $300 million worldwide, another win for this IP. Godzilla Minus One expanded into 2,540 theaters thanks to stellar reviews and a lack of blockbuster features to compete with, earning $8.34 million in its second weekend. It will be passing $50 million globally by the end of this paragraph and will remain in theaters well into 2024 thanks to its shortlist for Best Visuals on the Academy Awards list.
Trolls Band Together keeps humming with $6.2 million in its fourth weekend ($83 million domestically and $173.7 million worldwide) and has been performing remarkably better than the family-animated Wish, which dipped 31% in its third weekend and has surpassed $100 million worldwide. Napoleon earned $4.2 million in its third weekend, surpassing $170 million worldwide. This feature, much like Killers of the Flower Moon, might be considered a “success” even for being on such a heavy budget, compared to the track record Disney has been having or Renaissance crashing in its second weekend by 77%. Take your pick, but Scorsese and Scott know they made a quality product and something to give their distributors ammunition to compete in the big leagues proceeding forward.
Lastly, Silent Night will be lucky to break even $10 million worldwide, and The Marvels has flatlined at $200 million worldwide (a new low for Marvel standards and a subtle reminder that now a great product is in need more than ever in this universe).
Next weekend sees the domestic release of Wonka, and the distributions of American Fiction and The Zone of Interest.
