Weekend Wrap-Up: Jumanji Spreads a Little Christmas Cheer
December 17, 2019
As expected, Jumanji: The Next Level dominated the competition over the weekend. Fortunately, it did so with a lot more than anticipated, earning $59.25 million. This is more than the rest of the top ten combined. Unfortunately, this happened in part due to the disastrous openings of Black Christmas and Richard Jewell. The overall box office rose dramatically from last weekend earning 31% more at $117 million. More importantly, this was 1.6% higher than the same weekend last year. Granted, that’s a tiny margin, but any win is worth celebrating at this point. Year-to-date, 2019 is still well behind 2018’s pace down 5.7% or $620 million at $10.31 billion to $10.93 billion. That said, if we can chip away at that deficit, then 2019 can at least end on a positive note and save face.
Jumanji: The Next Level easily beat expectations with $59.25 million, which is above the five-day opening for Welcome to the Jungle. On the downside, this film does have slightly weaker reviews and much stronger competition next weekend, so it will likely have much shorter legs. That said, this film did match its predecessor with an A minus rating from CinemaScore, and it is just about Christmas, so its legs won’t be too short. In fact, it still has an outside chance at $400 million domestically.
Frozen II matched expectations nearly perfectly with $19.07 million over the weekend for a total of $366.43 million after just four weeks of release. The film will drop below 4,000 theaters on Friday, but its theater average is still potent enough to keep it in wide release well into January.
Knives Out was next with $9.14 million over the weekend for a three-week total of $78.82 million. The film will become Lionsgate’s second $100 million hit released in 2019, although it could have to wait till 2020 to pass the century mark.
Richard Jewell is busted Oscar-bait. The film missed the Mendoza Line with an opening of just $4.68 million in 2,502 theaters. Its reviews are good and it earned an A-rating from CinemaScore, so it could have had long legs. However, theater owners will be looking to drop the film as soon as they are contractually able to after a start like this. This will kill its box office and you can’t vote for a film you haven’t seen.
Black Christmas had an even weaker opening with just $4.24 million in 2,625 theaters. The film also earned the weakest reviews of the week, as well as the lowest CinemaScore at just a D plus. Depending on the exact wording of the contract, theater owners might be forced to keep it until after Christmas, but the film will be shoved into the smallest screens by Friday and given the least number of showings they can contractually get away with.
Looking in on the sophomore class and we find just one film, Playmobil in 23rd place with just $144,000 in 1,458 theaters. Its theater average was just $99. Its running tally is just $966,000, which would have been too small an opening had it earned that during its opening day. There’s nothing positive to say about this movie’s box office run.
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Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Frozen II, Richard Jewell, PLAYMOBIL, Black Christmas, Jumanji: The Next Level, Knives Out