The first tentpole of the Christmas season is off to a promising start for a musical.
The Timothée Chalamet-led Wonka scored an opening day gross of $14.4 million from 4,203 theaters at the Friday box-office, putting it on course to earn $38 million or more in its American opening.
That’s a promising start for a musical, a genre that has struggled in recent times. From Warner and Harry Potter franchise producer David Heyman, Wonka is a whimsical origin tale about the magical candy man Willy Wonka, who was played by Gene Wilder in the classic movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Audiences bestowed Wonka with an A- CinemaScore, while 60 percent of Friday ticket buyers were between the ages of 18 and 34. The largest quad was 18 to 24 at 33 percent, while another 10 percent of ticket buyers were between 13 and 17, underscoring Chalamet’s star status with younger moviegoers.
Wonka is skewing slightly female so far, or 54 percent.
It is directed by Paul King of Paddington fame and starring Chalamet as a young Willy Wonka.
The movie features a star-studded ensemble cast, including Hugh Grant, Olivia Colman, Keegan-Michael Key, Calah Lane, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Mathew Baynton, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Natasha Rothwell, Rich Fulcher, Rakhee Thakrar, Tom Davis and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.
Wonka hopes to sing loudly throughout the holidays. This weekend always poses a challenge for moviegoing in that many consumers are occupied with gift-buying and other preparations, but traffic at the multiplex picks up in earnest once presents are unwrapped on December 25.
Warners is dominating the year-end marquee. DC superhero pic Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom opens Dec. 22, followed on Christmas Day by The Color Purple, which is also a musical.
On the family front, Universal and Illumination the original animated event pic Migration comes out on December 22.
The musical genre has a checkered history of late, but Wonka (and Color Purple) hope to reverse this curse.
They hope to match the success of films including the Hugh Jackman-led The Greatest Showman, which debuted to dismal numbers over Christmas in 2017 but then took hold and amassed a fortune.
Wonka is one of the first Hollywood movies to unspool since the SAG-AFTRA strike ended. Warners and the filmmakers breathed a huge sigh of relief at being able to dispatch Chalamet to promote and publicize the PG-rated film. Young girls are particularly taken with the young actor, who next stars in Dune: Part Two, which Warners and Legendary delayed until next March so that Chalamet and co-star Zendaya would be able to do press.
