‘Panther 2,‘ ’Violent Night’ Lead Otherwise Muted Weekend
Tommy Wirkola’s Violent Night opened to $13.3 million domestically, while Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther sequel stayed No. 1 with $17.6 million.
Tommy Wirkola’s holiday-themed action-thriller Violent Night earned a solid $13.3 million from 3,682 theaters in its debut.
Holdover Black Panther: Wakanda Forever continued to please in topping the chart with $17.6 million from 3,855 locations.
Wakanda Forever has now earned an impressive $394 million domestically to pass up such superhero pics as The Batman, and $733 million globally. It is also the first film since Spider-Man: No Way Home to stay No. 1 for four consecutive weekends.
Violent Night was the only new wide studio release over the Dec. 2-4 weekend. From Universal and 87North, the genre pic follows a team of mercenaries who break into the compound of a wealthy family on Christmas Eve and take everyone hostage. But they aren’t prepared for a surprise combatant: Santa Claus (David Harbour), who proves that Nick is no saint.
Violent Night — earning a respectable B+ CinemaScore and placing No. 2 domestically — also stars John Leguizamo, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder, Leah Brady, Edi Patterson, Cam Gigandet and Beverly D’Angelo.
Otherwise, it was a frosty weekend for moviegoing as a number of leftover Thanksgiving films failed to see much action. Complicating matters, Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was only allowed by Netflix to play in theaters for one week over the holiday (while the streamer didn’t report Thanksgiving grosses for Glass Onion, the movie fared well, according to sources).
Disney’s family animation Strange World struggled in its second weekend, earning a mere $4.9 million from 4,174 cinemas for a 12-day domestic total of $25.5 million and $42.3 million worldwide. At this pace, the movie could lose more than $100 million.
Searchlight’s The Menu placed No. 4 with $3.6 million from 2,810 theaters for a domestic tally of nearly $25 million and north of $47 million globally.
Sony and Black Label Media’s Devotion rounded out the top five with $2.8 million or thereabouts in its sophomore session for a 12-day domestic tally of $13.8 million. The Korean War drama stars Jonathan Majors and Top Gun: Maverick‘s Adam Powell.
Back on the top 10 chart, Fathom Events’ special showing of I Heard the Bells, about the story behind the famous Christmas poem, earned nearly $2 million from 955 theaters for the three-day weekend to place No. 6.
Spielberg’s The Fabelmans continues to hold steady at 638 theaters in hopes of growing its theater count once Oscar nominations. The film grossed another $1.3 million for a muted domestic total of $5.6 million.
Hollywood and exhibitors are counting on James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water to provide boost to the year-end box office when hitting theaters mid-month.
Box office is not expected to heat up in a major way until March due to ongoing production and post-production delays connected to the pandemic.
At the specialty box office, Focus Features opened Michael Showalter’s romantic-comedy Spoiler Alert opened in five theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The film posted a per location average of $14,110.
Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation also began its limited theatrical run before debuting Dec. 9 on Apple+ TV. Like Netflix, Apple doesn’t release theatrical grosses. The high-profile slavery movie with Will Smith launched in fewer than 10 theaters, including several Cinemark locations. One source with says the location average was around $3,000, a muted showing.
