A Brief Peek at the Thanksgiving Box Office
With the Thanksgiving weekend now fading
behind us, the next big milestone for holiday releases, what is the state of
the domestic box office? Blake & Wang P.A.’s Brandon Blake, our local entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles in the
USA, sums up the state of affairs.
Brandon Blake
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Takes Black Friday
The top spot for the weekend goes to Lionsgate’s new Hunger Games prequel, with a 3-day of $28.8M and a 5-day of $42M. It is projected that the film should be traveling on about $100M by the time you read this, likely closing at $150M domestically.
Usually, we’d see a Disney release in this spot, but their run of Box Office misses continues with the release of the animated Wish. Instead, it barely managed to cling to a number 3 spot, at just $19.5M in total as its 3-day. Apple’s Sony-distributed Napoleon pipped it to the number two spot, with an impressive 3-day of $20.4M and 5-day of around $32M. Strangely, that’s been a big hit with IMAX audiences, taking over a third of its ticketing money there. That’s likely good news for Apple, with Sony taking 8% of the box office as part of their distribution deal and Apple on the line for any shortfalls. This time, it seems they’ve avoided that cost.
The Overall Thanksgiving Box Office
With those as the weekend’s top performers, what of the Box Office overall? There we have good news indeed. While still falling short of the $263.4M we saw in 2019 (powered mostly by the phenomenon that was Frozen 2), it’s still the best post-pandemic Thanksgiving we’ve seen. It closed at a very respectable $173.9M.
In a Thanksgiving weekend only just free of the impacts of the two strikes that have plagued 2023, and the limited ‘star-power’ marketing that came with it, that’s a more than respectable base. Let’s hope the momentum can continue throughout the festive season for a strong close to the year.
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