Musicals are pulling some weight during the winter season, with Wonka topping $500 million globally and Mean Girls earning almost $32 million for the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. Live-action musicals tend to work magic when not bombarded with the standard superhero movie or the next high-concept horror thrill. Paramount made the correct choice to distribute it in cinemas as early test screenings reflected well and proved audiences still had an enduring passion for Mark Waters’ 2004 comedy feature with Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams. A B+ from CinemaScore and decent reviews have made it the new box office queen, and with no significant tentpole releases until Argylle on February 2nd, this could lead the packs with some legs.
The Beekeeper took in $16.8 million over the Fri-Sun weekend, boasting a record of sorts for action man Jason Statham. That already eclipses the domestic total of Expend4bles and Safe and the third-biggest top-billed weekend opening for the star (behind the Meg films). Technically, this is David Ayer’s best film since, well, Fury, as any features of his in the past decade have severely become wallowed in mediocrity on someone’s desk to keep notes on. For the namesake film, it’s another Statham one-man band feature as he dismantles a scammer’s organization for causing one of his close friends to take her life after said organization robbed her of all of her life earnings. Barring the plot, we can toss this feature in with The Transporter, Crank, Spy, and War for other action vehicles that kept the English actor on his feet. Meanwhile, we’ll be waiting for his presence in the next F&F feature or maybe, Beekeeper 2.
In other news, Night Swim sunk 60% for $4.66 million in weekend two. It’s good for Universal and Blumhouse to capitalize on another life-processing fear regarding the setting, but some knocks on the head will have them realize that a bland product can only be leg out for so long as folks will realize the gimmick and stray away from it. A low budget will salvage its operations as it’ll pass the “break-even” status sometime this week, but it’s another horror movie that flounders with simple ingredients.
Wonka has topped $500 million globally, another win for the musical genre. Anyone But You is on pace to claw for $100 million worldwide, Migration will make a play for $100 million domestically, and The Boys in the Boat will pass $40 million by tonight. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is desperately in need of swimming to $400 million worldwide, yet it still will be another nail in the coffin for Warner Brothers’ product as they’ll have to reboot the DC life once again for 2025 and pray that James Gunn with make the next Superman feature something to draw our eyes to. And The Book of Clarence crashed with $2.575 million, while newcomer Guntur Kaaram took in $4.1 million.
Next weekend sees the release of I.S.S., Sunrise, Wanted Man, and Cult Killer.
