Battle at the Box Office 11/4
Terminator: Dark Fate won the first weekend of November but it was mostly a hollow victory as it opened well below expectations. (Also of note: All box office data is coming from the-numbers.com now, who have stepped up big time in the wake of Box Office Mojo’s inexplicably terrible website redesign and decision to lock everything behind a paywall)
Terminator: Dark Fate made $29 million, which is $2 million above what Genisys made in its opening weekend but Dark Fate cost $30 million more to make with a budget of $185 million. Dark Fate opened in basically every major market except Japan, bringing in a global total of $123.6 million but industry analysts are saying it would need $500 million worldwide just to break even, which will not happen unless some miracle happens internationally. Analysts are also suggesting the movie could cost Paramount $100 million or more in losses, which comes back to back with the massive disaster of Gemini Man that will most likely cost them at least $75 million.
Joker took second place with $13.5 million, bringing it up to over $299 million domestic and over $933 million worldwide. It should be able to easily cross over the $1 billion mark, becoming the first R rated movie to ever hit that mark.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, which actually was the #1 box office winner for a second weekend after the actual numbers came out last week, is definitely third place this past weekend with $12.2 million. It has made over $84 million domestic and just over $383 million worldwide but its still nowhere near the first movie, still outpaced by around 50% from where the first movie was at the same time, at least domestically.
Harriet and The Addams Family rounded out the top 5. The former opened to fourth place with $11.6 million, which is well above expectations. It’s a little tricky for comparisons as a lot of similar movies opened in limited release first. It’s well above what 12 Years a Slave made when it eventually went wide but about half as much as movies like Lincoln and Hidden Figures made when they opened wide but it is another hit for Focus Features, who recently had their biggest movie of all time with Downton Abbey.
The other new releases barely made it into the top 10. Motherless Brooklyn, the passion project from Edward Norton, took ninth place with $3.5 million in 1,342 theaters. It’s $5 million below his last directorial project, Keeping the Faith, which made around $8 million on more screens back in 2000 and its between Isle of Dogs and Pride and Glory as far as his leading actor openings. Arctic Dogs was tenth place with $2.9 million, which is a low opening even compared to B and C level animated movies like Rock Dog, The Star, and Free Birds.
The Per Theater average went to Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, which is currently in 15 theaters and took in $15,061 at each of them over the weekend.