Battle at the Box Office 11/18/24
Red One took the top spot at the box office, but it didn’t exactly set the box office on fire, especially considering its massive budget.
Red One opened to $32.1 million, which in the wide-ranging category of “Christmas” movies makes it the fourth best opening (unadjusted for inflation) between Batman Returns and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. The last genuinely blockbusting Christmas/Holiday movie was probably 2018’s animated The Grinch, which opened to $67.5 million and is the highest opening “Christmas” movie. For Dwayne Johnson, Red One opened between Jungle Cruise and Hercules, while for Chris Evans, it opened between Lightyear and Knives Out. The movie got a solid A- CinemaScore, so it may hang around through the holiday season if it doesn’t drop off quickly this coming weekend versus Gladiator II and Wicked. Amazon is apparently not sweating if the movie loses a bunch of money in the theatrical window, as the company is reportedly playing the long game and anticipating making up costs when it hits Prime Video, with many users being served ads during it. The company is hoping it becomes an annual holiday viewing on streaming.
Venom: The Last Dance moved down to second place with another $7.3 million. It now has $127.5 million domestically and $436 million worldwide.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever stayed in third place with another $5.2 million, bringing its domestic revenue to $19.8 million.
Heretic and The Wild Robot rounded out the top five. Heretic dropped 52% from last weekend’s opening, making another $5.1 million, taking it to $20.4 million domestically. If it continues to hold, Heretic could reach #6 in A24’s all-time domestic list, and it would need to make over $35.6 million to enter the top 5 and top The Iron Claw.
Further down the list, Filipino romantic drama Hello, Love, Again took 8th place with $2.3 million in 248 theaters, while A Real Pain moved into the top 10 in ninth place with $2.2 million after expanding into 1,185 theaters.
The best Per Theater average went to All We Imagine as Light, which made $15,625 in each of the three theaters it was playing in over the weekend.
