Box office: 2023 ends on a low note as ‘Wonka’ wins weekend, ‘The Color Purple’ drops to 4th

Edward Douglas
·5 min read
3

Happy New Year! So many people are hoping the movie biz recovers in 2024 after the effects of the pandemic was then followed by a dual strike. But 2023 ended on a relatively lower note at the box office. Read on for the weekend box office report.

This past week has been a particularly interesting one, beginning with “The Color Purple” winning Christmas Day with $18.1 million, literally the second highest box office take for that holiday. As the week went along, that movie started slipping lower and lower as two other Warner Bros’ releases, Timothée Chalamet‘s “Wonka” and the superhero sequel “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” started to catch up. Illumination Entertainment’s animated film “Migration” and the Sony rom-com “Anyone But You” also started to gain ground with so many people being off from work and school.

More from GoldDerby

“Wonka” ended up winning Friday with $8.6 million to the roughly $6.7 million of “Migration” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” essentially reversing the top three from Christmas weekend. It ended up winning the weekend with an estimated $22.7 million over the three-day weekend and a projected $29.5 million including Monday. That amount was up 26% from the Christmas weekend, bringing its domestic total to $140.2 million. “Wonka” added another $39.1 million internationally to bring its global total to $379 million.

SEE Grab the popcorn and sound off in our movie forums

For comparison, the last time New Year’s Day fell on a Monday was 2018 when the top two movies, “Star Wars Episode VIII” and “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” made more than $100 million between them in just the three-day portion of the weekend. This weekend’s Top 10 made just slightly more than that.

“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” took second place with $18.3 million (down 34%) with $26.3 million including Monday, which brought its domestic total to $81.8 million. That isn’t great, but at least it’s better than “The Marvels,” at least through Thursday, even though that Marvel Studios movie opened bigger. Overseas, “Aquaman” made another $50.5 million to bring its international total to $173.6 million and global total to $251.5 million, i.e. another domestic flop being saved by international box office.

The animated “Migration” took third place with $17 million over the three-day weekend, up 38% from its opening weekend, with $22 million including Monday, which brings its domestic total to $59.4 million. “Migration” made almost the exact same amount overseas this weekend in 68 territories, putting it just over $100 million globally.

After making $32.3 million in its first four days in theaters, “The Color Purple” dropped to fourth place with $11.7 million three-day, and $14.9 million including Monday. That’s quite a drop when you consider that it made $18.1 million just on Christmas Day, but it has made $47.2 million in its first week, which isn’t a bad start.

The Sydney Sweeney / Glen Powell rom-com “Anyone But You” made $8.8 million over the three-day weekend with $11 million, including New Year’s Day, putting it in fifth place for the weekend with $27.6 million grossed domestically. It made 50% more over the three-day weekend than its opening weekend before Christmas.

George Clooney‘s sports drama “The Boys in the Boat” made an estimated $8.4 million over its first full three-day weekend and $11.2 million including New Year’s Day to take sixth place, bringing its total to $24.6 million in just one week.

It was followed by two other sports dramas, with Sean Durkin‘s “The Iron Claw” taking seventh place with $5 million over the three days and a projected $6.9 million including Monday for $18.1 million total. By comparison, Michael Mann‘s “Ferrari” made $4 million in its first full weekend, with $5.2 million including Monday and a six-day total of $12 million.

“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” held onto its position in the Top 10 with an estimated $3.7 million over the four-day weekend and $160.6 million grossed domestically.

SEE Box office: All time domestic top-grossing movies

Hayao Miyazaki‘s animated “The Boy and the Hero” was one of the few movies opening earlier in December that remained in the Top 10 with an additional $2.5 million over the three-day weekend and $3.3 million including Monday, bringing its domestic total to $36.8 million as Miyazaki’s biggest domestic hit to date.

The shortlisted German Oscar selection, “The Teacher’s Lounge,” was released into three theaters in New York and L.A. by Sony Classics, where it made $15,665 over the three-day weekend, roughly $5,221 per theater.

No one had a perfect score in the Dec. 22 box office prediction game, although 28 players went 5 for 6. That Telugu language movie “Salaar” taking fifth place screwed a lot of players up. All but “Max,” who won the weekend with 29,289 points. That wasn’t enough to dethrone “Mellow Drama,” who won the season with 1,472,216 points and a 71.90% accuracy. Congratulations!

A new season begins this week, so check back on Wednesday for the weekend preview, focusing on the latest Blumhouse horror film, “Night Swim.”

SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions

Best of GoldDerby

Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.