The fall box office is rough, that’s certainly sure now. Though, not for everyone. In a surprise twist, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes seemingly pulled in a stronger second weekend than expected even with a B+ CinemaScore; further adding to its validity for telling movie’s legs nowadays given Five Nights at Freddy’s had an A- and just crashed in its second weekend. However, the film was also promoted by its cast before the premiere due to getting a waiver during the strikes,w which likely gave it a bit of a boost. It added $28.8M over the weekend (a 38% drop) and generally had a $42M run over the Thanksgiving holiday.
The Marvels‘ managed to pull in $6.4M over the weekend with $9.2M in the holidays, which is putting it on a path to be the first MCU film to make less than $100M. Still, a 37% drop after its first massive drop is a much better hold than Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s 60% and The Flash’s 65%. If it manages to surprise and hold a bit better it could still surprise but that just depends on if Marvel Studios and Disney decided to drop it before Christmas as an early gift for subscribers (which wouldn’t be new for them). Plus it had quite a bit of competition with two new releases and the other three from last weekend. Not going to change much but still worth noting.
The true disappointment of the weekend is, however, that Disney’s 100-year celebration release Wish only earned $35M over the weekend and pulled in $45M in the Thanksgiving timeframe. It’s miles ahead of Strange World from last year which opened to $18M, but it’s definitely not close to where Encanto was two years prior. It only opened in 27 markets overseas, which means its global tally is $49M as most of the slate this year has underperformed with very high budgets and the fall doesn’t come with that summer bonus. It does have an A- CinemaScore but glancing at Hunger Games and Five Nights at Freddy’s, who knows how valuable that really is.
It may be a general issue with Disney+ showcasing a similar effect with Five Nights at Freddy’s second-weekend drop. If Wish faces a similar development, it showcases that audiences are going to need some time before they adjust to the new non-45-day release schedule on streaming platforms. Plus, Disney turned its own films into “wait and see” releases with its overall push into streaming. It’ll take time and focus to heal, which will likely happen but has shown its thorns in 2023; an overall detrimental year for blockbuster releases.
The surprise was Napoleon who opened to $78.8M worldwide and had a $21M weekend opening with $32.5M over its first five days. Yet, it continues the trend of a $200M budget for a film that is massively underperforming to cover its bill similar to Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which stands at $151M globally. The comparison with superhero flicks is commonly that those are made for all age audiences and is also a point made by Variety, but given that many point to Oppenheimer as the “cinematic revival” of long-films with R ratings doing well at the box office: the point becomes far more difficult as that film’s success is looking more and more like an exception.
One thing continues to dominate the box office: it is struggling and while Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian points out that it’s doing better than the last few years and sees it as “encouraging,” it’s very likely that studios are going to avoid this timeslot moving forward if things don’t change with high-budget releases. The fall box office is looking grim overall, as even the second entry to the billion-dollar Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is going to premiere quite low and who knows if it’ll actually enjoy a holiday boost given just how volatile this year has been.
