Battle at the Box Office 12/4/23
Following the massive success of Taylor Swift’s concert film The Eras Tour, Beyoncé took the top spot at the box office this past weekend with her concert film, Renaissance.
Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé opened to $21 million, which is the best post-Thanksgiving opening in two decades. The week after Thanksgiving is traditionally slow at the box office as things shift gears for the rest of the holiday season. Renaissance is nowhere near the opening of the Eras Tour film, which opened to almost $100 million back in October, and it’s a lower opening than Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never, which opened to $29 million in 2011. Renaissance is a slightly different style of movie than a straight concert film, with more behind-the-scenes footage, and is more a companion to the live concert than a substitute for it. The fans who went out to see it gave it an A+ CinemaScore, which means they absolutely loved what they saw and we’ll have to see how it holds this coming weekend.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes dropped to second with another $14.1 million, dropping 51% from last weekend. It’s holding well and has made $122.7 million so far domestically and $243.6 million worldwide.
Godzilla Minus One took third place with $11.4 million, which is the best non-Monsterverse opening ever for a Godzilla movie in the domestic market. Godzilla 2000 opened to $4.4 million when it opened in August 2000 and the rest of the non-Monsterverse movies have had much more limited openings. Godzilla Minus One was in 2,308 theaters over the weekend. It got an A CinemaScore and rapturous critical and fan response, so it should hold well going into this coming weekend.
Trolls Band Together and Wish rounded out the top 5. Wish is looking like another disappointing disaster for Disney, dropping 61% from last weekend with $7.7 million domestically. It currently has a total of $42.2 million domestically and $81.8 million worldwide. It’s currently tracking right between Elemental and Strange World and it’s made more already than Strange World made in its entire run but it still cost $200 million+ to make and will struggle to not lose money, especially if it continues to drop like it did this weekend.
Further down the list, the Bollywood action movie Animal opened in seventh place with $6.4 million, followed by the latest from Angel Studios, The Shift, which opened in eighth place with $4.3 million. John Woo’s return to Hollywood, Silent Night, opened in ninth place with $3 million, which is Woo’s worst wide opening ever although it was the lowest number of theaters ever for a Woo wide release with 1,870 theaters. Hard Target opened in 1,999 theaters back in 1993 and opened to just over $10 million. Silent Night also got a C CinemaScore, so audiences who did see it weren’t having it and it seems likely to drop completely out of the top 10 this coming weekend.
The Per Theater average went to The Sweet East, which made $30,969 in 1 theater over the weekend.