‘The Boy and the Heron’ and ‘Godzilla Minus One’ made box office history
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Japanese films have done well in North American in recent years, particularly Anime, but for the first time ever, Japanese productions took up two spots in the top three at the box office. Read on for the weekend box office report.
While the popularity of Anime has been growing, there’s no denying that the godfather of the phenomenon has to be Oscar winner Hayao Miyazaki (“Spirited Away”), whose movies have been released for many decades here, including Fathom Events regularly giving his full filmography theatrical releases.
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Miyazaki’s latest Anime (and at one point, thought to be his last) is “The Boy and the Heron,” which opened in Japan earlier this year with very little advance marketing before having its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September. It also platformed in New York and L.A. a few weeks back, building up positive reviews with 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.
SEE Golden Globes: ‘The Boy and the Heron’ is poised to make history
This weekend, GKIDS released Miyazaki’s movie into 2,205 theaters, including a dubbed version featuring the voices of Robert Pattinson and others. It quickly built on its earlier previews to make $5.6 million on Friday and an estimated $12.8 million over the weekend to take first place, the first time a Miyazaki movie has been #1 at the domestic box office. Audiences gave the filmmaker’s latest a solid “A-” CinemaScore, as well.
Second place went to Lionsgate’s fantasy prequel, “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” with $9.4 million, down 34% in its fourth weekend, to bring its North American total to $135.7 million. As of now, it is the most successful release at the box office since “Five Nights at Freddy’s” and “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” which opened in October.
Toho’s critically-acclaimed monster prequel “Godzilla Minus One” continues to be a huge hit, remaining in third place with $8.3 million, a negligible drop of just 27%, to bring its domestic total to $25.3 million. Although it has a long way to go to surpass the gross of hit “Pokemon” movies from 1999 and 2000, it’s likely to surpass some of Crunchyroll’s recent Anime hits sometime this week.
The animated “Trolls Band Together” also held its ground in fourth place with $6.2 million (down just 21%) as it brought its domestic total to $83 million, quite a bit less than the original movie in 2016. “Trolls” has made another $90.7 million overseas, and Universal followed suit by releasing its upcoming animated film “Migration” early in 18 top international markets, including France, Italy, and China, where it made $6.5 million.
Disney’s animated “Wish” took fifth place with $5.3 million, down 32%, as it brought its total gross to $49.4 million, not great for a Disney animated movie over the holidays.
Beyoncé‘s “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé” took a massive tumble in its second weekend, dropping all the way down to sixth place, losing 77% of its opening weekend to make $5 million in its second weekend. That means it’s just made $28 million in its first ten days and probably will lose many theaters next weekend.
Ridley Scott‘s “Napoleon,” starring Joaquin Phoenix, took seventh place with $4.2 million (down 42%) with $53 million grossed domestically. The movie has made more than twice that amount overseas, $117.7 million, to bring its global total to $170.8 million.
Bleecker Street and Fathom Events released “Waitress: The Musical,” documenting Sara Bareilles‘ hit Broadway musical, into 1,214 on Thursday where it made $672,000 its opening day, and then another $3.2 million over the weekend for $3.9 million total.
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A movie that’s already proving to be an enormous hit is Yorgos Lanthimos‘ “Poor Things,” starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Dafoe, a presumptive Oscar player that Searchlight Studios released into just nine theaters in select cities where it brought in $644,000, having the third-best per-theater average of the year with over $71.5k per location. It will expand into 80 theaters on Friday and then even wider on Friday, November 22, a great start for its theatrical run which should see some awards nominations coming in this coming week.
Only 41 players had “Boy and the Heron” winning the weekend in the Gold Derby box office game and 60 players had “Godzilla” remaining in third place. Almost 100 players had “Wish” in fifth place, so there’s a better chance for many players going 6 for 6 this weekend than in other recent weekends.
Congrats to “nicholas” and “jakeberger” for being the only two players to score 5 for 6 in the December 1 game though nicholas scored the most points by putting his Super Bet behind “Wish” taking fifth place. “Cwright55” scored the most points overall by guessing “Godzilla Minus One” to correctly take third place.
The only movie new wide release opening this Friday is Timothée Chalamet as “Wonka,” so check back on Wednesday for the weekend preview to see how that might do.
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