The Hunger Games scrapes enough to get by, Trolls Band Together to help murder The Marvels before Thanksgiving, Next Goal Wins skies it, and Other Box Office News.
Ah, this takes me back. I’ve been doing Box Office Reports at a semi-consistent rate for an entire decade as of Halloween and, for three of those years, it became tradition to ring in the Thanksgiving weekend with news of a new Hunger Games opening. Almost this very weekend ten years ago, I reported on Catching Fire setting the then-sixth biggest opening of all-time with $158 million that would also double as the biggest November opening ever, a record which would stand until Black Panther: Wakanda Forever last year. So, there is something comforting about having a new Hunger Games to report on in the November release window that’s been so good to it. A throwback to days of old.
Unfortunately, as proven by the state of the Box Office this year, you can never truly go back to the golden times, no matter how much recognisable IP you flash in a viewer’s face. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is your new Box Office #1 but with a total that’s barely equal to The Marvels’ hysteria-inducing opening last week of $44 million and a middling “B+” Cinemascore. (Yes, I know, but this system works the same way as gaming sites whose scales effectively start at 7/10.) For those who like a good stat – which I’m assuming is all of you, why are you reading BORs otherwise – Fire’s start was roughly equal to 3.5 Ballads. The silver lining, if you want to take a glass half-empty approach, can be found in the International total of $54.5 million which means its $100 mil production budget should be just about covered already. More than we can say for some other releases this year.
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But, in another throwback to when BOR work was a fun carefree affair rather than an exercise in how much one enby can take before their futile efforts to bring reason to a space dominated by shrieking nuance-blind children drive them insane, that wasn’t all for this week’s newbies! An entire month after the UK release – perhaps as a weird backhanded apologia for withholding Puss in Boots: The Last Wish until two months later, or hoping to cannibalise Disney in the “animated musical” sweepstakes next week – DreamWorks began the US leg of Trolls Band Together’s world tour! Not to be confused with Trolls World Tour, which was the second entry in this franchise and, you may recall, one that Universal pissed a lot of theatre owners off with by day-and-dating its digital release and cinema run on account of, y’know, that silly pandemic thing ruining our lives.
Whilst that move did boffo business at the time, you could argue that it set the stage for DreamWorks to get Pixar/Disney+-ed by associating their films as not being cinema-worthy, leading to rough financial performances ever since coming out of lockdown. Would the instigator of this damage see a similar handicap with its newest instalment? Turns out: not really. Comfortable second-place start, $30.6 million which is closer to the $46.5 mil start of the original Trolls in 2016 than most prognosticators expected, and an “A” Cinemascore. God, the scenes if this actually outdoes Wish next weekend…
Just cos we’re out of Spooky Season 2023, doesn’t mean the horror movies stop. It just means they lean into the “ironic” theming angle and/or get weirdly idiosyncratic with their nostalgia IP branding. To wit, remember Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse experiment from 2007? Remember how that included a bunch of fake trailers by famous friends of the pair? Well, Eli Roth has resurrected his Thanksgiving-themed slasher contribution from that for a full-length feature of its own which is *checks notes* his most acclaimed film to date? It’s a Turkey Day miracle! Thanksgiving also may be the #3 or #4 movie in America right now – more on that in a sec – having carved up $10.2 million over the three-day period.
Much less of a success by all metrics is Taika Waititi’s adaptation of acclaimed football documentary Next Goal Wins. Initially positioned as the next Jojo Rabbit – the feel-good awards-friendly crowdpleaser following a big four-quadrant Thor-buster – it’s instead gotten dismal reviews, no real buzz owing to the after-effects of the SAG-AFTRA strike, and even general audiences not really biting on it. Despite opening in double the theatres Jojo ever played in its lifetime (2,240 compared to a max of 1,173), Next Goal scored (heh) a worse PTA than most of Jojo’s run managed; $1,116 for a total opening of $2.5 million and seventh-place. Decidedly not liquid football.
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Very lastly before we hit the Full List, we should acknowledge The Marvels which will once again dominate headlines in the worst way. The reason why I cannot tell you at press time whether Thanksgiving is the #3 or #4 movie in America is cos The Marvels has reported the exact same weekend haul of $10.2 million. That is an ugly 77.9% drop between weekends, obviously the worst for an MCU film and the third-worst of all-time for any film playing on more than 3,000 screens, only “bested” by Halloween Ends (80% sophomore fall and that had the mitigating aspect of day-and-dating on streaming) and the 2009 Friday the 13th remake (80.4%).
For those asking why, I would first like to redirect you to last week’s BOR where I went over in exhaustive non-sensationalist detail about the uphill battle this movie faced from the off. As for this particular weekend, the sophomore go is where a film’s quality/word-of-mouth takes over as the driving force and, whilst I liked the film a bunch, it’s simply not a great enough movie to reverse the toxic hate-storm surrounding it right now, nor shake audiences out of their “well, it’ll be on Disney+ soon enough” malaise cos, OOPS, that’s what happens when you shorten theatrical windows too much. I’m just tired of talking about The Marvels like this, guys. It makes me too sad.
May the Full List be ever in your favour.
US Box Office Results: Friday 17th November 2023 – Sunday 19th November 2023
1] The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
$44,000,000 / NEW
I get that I’m in the real minority of thinking that splitting Mockingjay into two movies was a good idea which worked out great – Part 1 is my favourite of the franchise and, yes, I am totally serious – but, god, if only one entry was allowed to be split in two, Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes absolutely should’ve been it. First two-thirds of this are excellent; all the character, world building, intensity, and thematic work that placed Hunger Games head-and-shoulders above its YA ilk approached with a fresh perspective and renewed vigour. The last third feels like watching its sequel at fast-forward with half the scenes missing and a quarter of the budget/filmmaking prowess, and the thing just craters. The worst kind of overcorrection. Goddammit, we were so close to an all-timer here!
2] Trolls Band Together
$30,600,000 / NEW
Despite being out in the UK for an entire month, I am yet to see Band Together. I still haven’t even seen World Tour. Partly because it launched in the middle of the pandemic where all movies went into a hole never to be heard from again, but mostly because I’m pretty sure a part of my soul died at the laziness of the “I’m Coming Out”/“Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems” mashup in the original movie.
3=] The Marvels
$10,200,000 / $65,024,806
Is it a classic? God, no. Is it even outright great or unequivocally good? No, to be fully honest with you. But I had more fun with this one than any MCU film since Endgame – before anyone chimes in, Wakanda Forever and Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 are better films, but they’re not exactly fun ones. Gimme three ultra-charismatic women with excellent chemistry bantering together, kicking arse in action scenes which are legible and punchy, and herding cats and I’m a very happy Callie. It’s just obviously not enough for most people right now and that’s understandable. Can we at least stop asking the actors what they think about their movie bombing? What the fuck kind of question even is that? “Hi, [Actor]! Nobody likes your movie and it could possibly be a career-ender! What do you have to say to that?” What’s the matter with you people?
3=] Thanksgiving
$10,200,000 / NEW
It’s nice to see Eli Roth getting a win before the beleaguered Borderlands movie drops a 12-tonne anvil on his career.
5] Five Nights at Freddy’s
$3,500,000 / $132,611,720
“What if Ted wasn’t such a fucking pussy and went on a killing spree?” is the kind of horror movie premise which sounds so completely on-brand for Blumhouse I’m shocked it’s taken them this long to get around to making it. Take that comment however you feel.
6] The Holdovers
$2,700,000 / $8,357,480
Already climbed up to 1,478 theatres but next weekend is when this officially goes Wide. Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn similarly goes Wide next week after opening of 7 screens this weekend (an excellent $315,492 for a PTA of $45,070), so I’m holding off on talking about that film properly til then. Gimme more time to workshop my roasting material cos the film fucking suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
7] Next Goal Wins
$2,500,000 / NEW
Taika Waititi should be remanded into the custody of Our Flag Means Death for a minimum of five years; no writing and no acting and certainly no directing anywhere else until his sentence is up. I really do think that’d be best for him, both as a creative and for his public image, cos he’s excellent on that show.
8] TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR
$2,400,000 / $175,313,432
Lost half of its theatres, hence the steep drop. Still, Godspeed for giving us perhaps the only non-asterisked win of this entire back-half of the year, Miss Swift!
9] Priscilla
$2,326,380 / $16,982,259
Just saying, I’m no Sofia Coppola stan, but this would have to do something real drastic to end up the worst of the two Jacob Elordi dramas released in 2023.
10] Killers of the Flower Moon
$1,920,000 / $63,570,032
It’s time for another thrilling instalment of Nuclear Takes with Callie Petch!
…I don’t think this film works. I’m sorry.
This has been another thrilling instalment of Nuclear Takes with Callie Petch!
Dropped out: Journey to Bethlehem, Tiger 3, Radical, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie