The first weekend of the calendar year often is one for Christmas holdovers, seen as one of the final weekends of holiday before kids and adults go back to work around the country. With only one wide release this weekend, this means that awards contenders and big-budgeted blockbusters ruled the curb, all being a success within their own right.
Taking the top spot for a third weekend in a row is ‘Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker’. The JJ Abrams supposed finale has a reported budget of $300M, and whilst it is still taking eye-watering levels amount of money at the box office for Disney, who really didn’t need ‘The Rise Of Skywalker’ in a year including ‘Avengers: Endgame’ and ‘The Lion King’, it looks like it will gross less than its predecessor, not to mention ‘Frozen II’.
After taking $72M in its second weekend, ‘The Rise Of Skywalker’ dropped an average 49% in its third for another $37M. Comparing this to ‘The Last Jedi’, this is a heftier drop compared to the 26.6% drop for its predecessor in its third weekend, which took $52.5M. Coming into the weekend, ‘The Rise Of Skywalker’ was pacing about 10% behind the eighth and most controversial episode, but by the end of it, it will be at $445M in the United States, or 17% behind ‘The Last Jedi’, with its weekend estimates falling behind the pundits placing of the film at $42-44M this weekend.
Considering ‘The Rise Of Skywalker’ opened 21% behind ‘The Last Jedi’, this isn’t too bad, but it’s beginning to look like the Lucasfilm flick is running out of steam. Assuming it maintains a 50/50 domestic-to-international split, it will be somewhere around $885M globally.
For those still asking, a $1BN+ global gross is a near-certainty despite the speculation, but considering that ‘The Last Jedi’ took only another $90M in the US after its third weekend, I think we’re looking at the Daisy Ridley/Adam Driver/John Boyega film to top out at about $520M in the US and $1.05BN globally.
To put that into perspective, not adjusted for inflation it would still stand as the 14th biggest stateside grosser of all time, ahead of ‘Beauty & The Beast’ and behind ‘The Dark Knight’ (ten years later, its gross is still staggering). After all that ‘controversy’ surrounding ‘The Last Jedi’ that forced Disney to do a full reboot, it turns out that people actually liked ‘The Last Jedi’ more than ‘The Rise Of Skywalker’, which will gross around 22% less globally.
Meanwhile ‘Jumanji: The Next Level’ continues to prove that two big blockbusters can live next to each other. The $125M-budgeted sequel is looking to drop 33% in its third weekend for another $23M. This should push the Sony film to approximately $226M in the US, with something around the $280M mark where it shall final.
By Sunday, the mixed-received action-packed comedy should be at $570M globally, with a $700M worldwide final cume looking likely.
‘Frozen II’ is looking to take another $10M, but I don’t think anyone wants to really hear analysis on this one. Shots fired.
‘Little Women’, already earning tons of money, will be hoping for some nominations at the Oscars on January 13th, with the all important Best Picture nomination in sight. For what it’s worth, I think that the boffo opening weekend plus the good reviews both critically and commercially will get it a BP nomination, but we mustn’t think that this is the only reason it will receive one – it’s a bloody good film.
Anyway, the Greta Gerwig adaptation of the Jane Austin novel is taking another $12M this weekend, around a drop of just 28%. After twelve days of release, to be standing at $55M in the US is not a bad result at all. Budgeted at $42M, it will need some international markets to turn in the cash, but with a $80M+ final cume in the US all but guaranteed, Sony really don’t need to care about the box office result of this thanks to ‘Jumanji 3’.
Meanwhile ‘Spies In Disguise’ dropped 22% in its second weekend for another $10.3M. The mixed-to-well received animated toon now stands at $44M in the US. OK, it’s not a major hit, but it will continue to trundle along throughout January. With a $111M price tag, it will need international markets to succeed with a likely $80M+ endgame in the US.
‘Uncut Gems’ took another $6M this weekend, struggling to live up to the boffo opening weekend last weekend, but nevertheless the buzzy A24 awards-contender has already gone into the black.
After twelve days of release, The Safdie Brothers’s film stands at $30M in the US, already the third highest grossing A24 film of all time. It should final around $45-50M in the US, a strong result for a film that is receiving no awards buzz, budgeted at $15M.
‘Knives Out’ continues to become the sleeper hit of the season, taking another $5M this weekend. The Rian Johnson all-star whodunnit now stands at $125M in the US alone, a truly amazing feat, with the film posting solid weekday grosses. Globally, the Daniel Craig-led thriller stands at $245M against its $40M budget, cementing itself as a dark horse at the Oscars.
The one wide release of the weekend was Sony’s reboot of the classic horror franchise, ‘The Grudge’. The film received atrocious reviews with 19% (worse than ‘Cats’) on Rotten Tomatoes, but nevertheless horror fans turned out in the new year to see the re-imagination of the film, meaning it took $13M in its opening bow.
This is above Sony’s pre-weekend expectations of $9M, but right in line with what the industry was seeing. This is the classic horror sleeper success that happens in January every year, and with a budget of $10M, it should be making a neat profit for the studio.
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