That said, we’re in December and this has always been a bit of a backloaded month anyways, so we haven’t missed too much. So we’ll recap that first weekend and dive into what the Christmas season has in store, which is quite a bit, actually. At least in terms of quantity of releases. What movies will connect with audiences? That remains to be seen. I’m not sure I see many guaranteed box office smashes, but there’s certainly plenty that at least have decent potential. And if something doesn’t open high, no need to immediately sound the alarms. December is a unique time of year where things often open smaller and hold much better throughout the holiday season and into January as opposed to being so reliant on the opening weekend totals.
And for the sake of the market as a whole, let’s hope something manages to hit. November was a very rough month to start the holiday season with a double dose of massive Disney failures in “The Marvels” and “Wish,” with a Hunger Games prequel that opened to less than half of the previous low in the franchise.
As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.
December 1 - 3
The weekend following Thanksgiving is often a more quiet one. Studios often load up for the Thanksgiving holiday, then give themselves a bit of a cool down phase before priming up for the Christmas holiday. Typically it’s a good idea to have your biggest releases as close to the holiday as you can instead of opening right after the holiday is finished.
"RENAISSANCE: A Film by Beyoncé"
That said, there was a decent amount of releases that made for a somewhat busy weekend. Headlining everything was Beyoncé seeing the massive success Taylor Swift had earlier in the year and wanting to join the party with her own concert movie, RENAISSANCE: A Film by Beyoncé. This was announced shortly after the Taylor Swift concert movie was announced, which was presumably Beyoncé’s camp seeing those pre-sales and deciding they want in. It was either that or an interesting coincidence. Either way, this could end up as a decent new trend. Not that Taylor Swift started the trend, but her making more money in one weekend than any other attempt had in their entire runs certainly might spark new interest. Now “RENAISSANCE” was never expected to hit the heights of “The Eras Tour,” which opened to $92.8 million and so far has made $178.9 million domestically and $249.6 million worldwide, but a $21.8 million first place opening for Beyoncé is certainly nothing to scoff at. It’s actually more par for the course for this type of event. Before Taylor, the previous high was “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never” in 2011, which made $73.01 million after a $29.5 million opening.
“RENAISSANCE” was initially scheduled as the only major release this weekend, but making huge headway leading up to its release, mostly due to buzz and word of mouth was Toho Studios’ Godzilla Minus One. It was initially planned to only open in moderate release for just a week or two, but that plan certainly changed after becoming one of the best reviewed films of the year. It wound up opening in third place with $11.4 million. Now this isn’t the American MonsterVerse with Godzilla and Kong that is four movies in, with a fifth coming next year. This is the Japanese studio that initially debuted Godzilla in 1954 and has now made 33 total Godzilla movies, with “Minus One” being No. 33. Their previous movie was “Shin Godzilla” in 2016, which only made $1.9 million total in America as it made most of its $75.6 million worldwide gross overseas. So “Minus One” is already far past that in just a few days. The movie takes Godzilla back to his origins as a monster, not a protector, and a setting of post-World War II Japan.
Those two movies were mostly it for the major headlines of the weekend. The rest of the top five was filled up by Thanksgiving holdovers. But we did have a trio of smaller releases towards the bottom of the top 10. Opening in seventh place was the Indian film Animal. Indian Cinema has actually done pretty well in the states this year. And the studios distributing this movies have their system down of knowing where to release the movies. Despite opening in just 700 theaters, “Animal” made $6.5 million this weekend, which ended up higher than the two movies we’ll get to in a second, despite them having double or tripe the theater count. “Animals begins as a movie about a father and son, but apparently goes quite a few directions in its 204 minutes of runtime, including it turning into some sort of action/war epic at some point.
Below that at No. 8 is the Angel Studios release of The Shift. The movie stars Neal McDonough and is about a man trying to escape a dystopian world in order to return to his wife. In regards to Angel Studios, they are mostly known for the TV series “The Chosen” about the life of Christ, but found massive success earlier this year with “Sound of Freedom.” “The Shift” has them experimenting a bit more with genre, with this labeled as a sci-fi film, and instead of being another massive hit ends up more along the lines of their previous release, “After Death,” a documentary that opened in 2,645 theaters with $5.05 million. “The Shift” opened in a similar 2,450 theaters with $4.3 million.
Rounding out this trio of smaller releases was Silent Night, opening in ninth place with just $3.01 million, albeit in a slightly lower 1,870 theaters. As you can probably tell by the title, this is a Christmas themed movie, but specifically its a Christmas action movie from Lionsgate, the studio who released “John Wick,” which they will probably remind people in every action movie they release for the foreseeable future. Joel Kinnaman is the lead and he’s out to get revenge against a ruthless gang on Christmas Eve. Unlike “John Wick,” this movie was met with mediocre reviews at best and was unable to catch on with general audiences.
December 8 - 10
Moving forward to the current weekend that we’re in, there’s only one major release this weekend. But like the first weekend, there’s a couple of moderate releases and a massive limited release title. But the one major release is Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron. For the last several years this movie has been labeled as the final movie from acclaimed anime filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Fans certainly hope Miyazaki finds the pool of eternal life and lives forever, but in his perspective he feels that maybe he might not have quite as many years left on Earth, so he wanted to come back and make one final film as a tribute to his posterity after previously making his other final film, the 2013 movie “The Wind Rises.” Turns out there’s buzz, partially from Studio Ghibli themselves, that Miyazaki might actually have a few more final films after this one, which I’m sure no one is complaining about. However, it’s still a major event in that it’s been 10 years since his last movie. The movie was a massive success in Japan earlier this year and is looking to dethrone Beyoncé for the top spot in America this weekend with a projected $10-15 million after coming out on top Thursday night with $2.4 million.
GKIDS' "The Boy and the Heron"
In terms of theater count this weekend, the next highest release is Waitress: The Musical, which opened Thursday night in 1,214 theaters. It might pick up more heading into the weekend proper and come somewhat close to the 2,200 theaters of “The Boy and the Heron.” But regardless, this is an event wherein Fathom Events has paired with distributor Bleeker Street to release this recording of the Broadway musical “Waitress.” The musical was based on the 2007 movie of the same name, with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles and the book by Jessie Nelson, and began its run on Broadway in 2016 after first premiering in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2015. The musical played on Broadway until 2020 and has done a few other tours since. This particular recording of the musical that’s being released was recorded 2021 during its limited run at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York in an attempt to slowly reopen Broadway following the COVID shutdown.
Releasing in about 640 theaters is the Book of Mormon war epic The Oath from LDS filmmaker Darin Scott, formerly known as Darin Southam, a somewhat popular LDS actor who most notably played the lead in the movie “Ephraim’s Rescue.” For the last 13 years, Darin has had a long-term goal of writing and directing the first major Book of Mormon war epic. And in 2023 his dream is finally coming true after a very long journey. This will probably perform best in Utah and Idaho, but as noted they did manage to get it into over 600 theaters nationwide. After seeing the success of “Sound of Freedom,” Darin has high hopes that his movie will be the next major phenomenon. Whether or not that actually happens feels unlikely, but at least one can respect his perseverance and optimism for this project.
That’s it for the wide releases, but finally hitting limited release this weekend is the potential best-picture front-runner Poor Things. This will start in just 9 theaters this weekend and slowly expand outwards. The goal here is probably not necessarily be a holiday hit, but make itself known as the awards season progresses. The movie is the latest from director Yorgos Lanthimos, who is known for his odd, off-kilter movies like “The Lobster,” “Dogtooth,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” and “The Favourite,” the latter of which received 10 Oscar nominations, definitely putting Yorgos in the awards spotlight. His next movie has been highly anticipated and has been met with near universal praise since its premier at the Venice Film Festival in September and is predicted to compete with the likes of “Oppenheimer,” “The Holdovers” and “Barbie” for the best picture prize. Whether or not this connects with general audiences is a different story. Yorgos is very much an acquired taste as a director and this is essentially his version of a Frankenstein-like story with scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter, played by Willem Dafoe, bringing a young woman named Bella Baxter, played by Emma Stone, back to life, where she then explores all sorts of things regarding this thing called life.
December 15 - 17
While the first two weekends obviously brought a high number of movies into the market, at least in regards to a lot of those moderate to small releases, the third weekend of December is where the holiday fun begins. There’s only one wide release, but it’s a family film with potential to win the month and that’s Wonka. This is the third major theatrical film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s popular novel that probably doesn’t need much of an introduction. The book was released in 1964 and has had a very long life since then, first being adapted in 1971 with a bit of an inverted title, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. Then in 2005, Tim Burton took has stab at it, reverting the title back to “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” while casting Johnny Depp in the lead. And now Timothée Chalamet gets his turn as the character in “Wonka,” which focuses on a young Willy Wonka before he opened his famous chocolate factory. The movie is directed by Paul King, director of the two live-action Paddington movies, and based on early reaction is looking to be quite the crowd pleaser over the holidays. What hasn’t been pushed to heavily is that this is a musical. When that word comes out, the buzz could potentially higher.
Warner Bros.' "Wonka"
Given that I mentioned the release of “Poor Things,” I feel the need to briefly mention a couple of other awards contenders hitting limited release this weekend. The first of that is the winner of the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and that is American Fiction, a movie starring Jeffrey Wright as a novelist who is upset at the establishment for consistently profiting off of “Black” entertainment. So to prove a point, he creates an anonymous pen name to write his own “Black” novel. In regards to Oscar correlation, the winner of the People’s Choice Award at TIFF has a pretty strong correlation with best picture nominations. The last 11 winners were all nominated for best picture. Going back to 2008, five of them have won best picture. This year it would appear “American Fiction” has too much competition to actually win, but it would appear its chances for a nomination is at the very least is pretty strong.
While perhaps not on quite as strong ground as “American Fiction,” nevertheless the other notable limited release this weekend is Zone of Interest. This movie has also hit just about every major festival this season and has built quite a bit of buzz, but the subject matter has also lent it to receive some push back. The movie is about Rudolf Höss, a German officer during Nazi Germany, showing him and his wife trying to build a good life for him and his family. While the premise is certainly not showing him as a justified protagonist, perhaps not everyone will be on board for a movie about Nazi Germany. But still, it will at least be in the conversation this season. The movie is directed by Jonathan Glazer, who most recently directed the 2013 movie “Under the Skin,” so he’s not exactly one who directs movies with easy or comfortable subject matter.
December 22
There are, count it… EIGHT movies hitting wide release over the Christmas weekend. With Christmas falling on a Monday this year, five of them are taking a more traditional route of releasing on the Friday before Christmas, while the other three are releasing right on Christmas Day, so the Monday after the weekend. Because of that, instead of my traditional format of separating by weekend, I will separate these movies by their release day, either on the 22nd or the 25th.
Warner Bros.' "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom"
Leading things off is the final movie in the “SnyderVerse” continuity of DC movies, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. There’s perhaps a lot of people, both inside the studio and as DC fans, that are very happy to move on from this phase of the DC Universe. James Gunn has taken over at DC and will begin a new chapter at DC with his Summer 2025 release of “Superman: Legacy.” What the correct move was in hindsight for Warner Bros. and DC can be debated, but it certainly feels like announcing at the end of 2022 that the Universe will be rebooted, then continuing to release four “lame duck” DC movies in 2023 was not timed the best as the previous three - “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” “The Flash,” and “Blue Beetle” - all failed pretty miserably. Will James Wan’s Aquaman sequel buck that trend and perform well or will it be the latest to fail? There’s not a lot of confidence for it at the moment, but nevertheless an opening weekend performance will not be the thing to judge it by, especially with Christmas Eve on Sunday, a day where people don’t usually go to theaters. The first Aquaman only opened to $67.9 million in this same December slot, but legged it out to $335.1 million domestically and $1.1 billion worldwide, making it the only movie in the DCEU (“SyderVerse”) to cross $1 billion and the second highest domestic gross behind “Wonder Woman” at $412.6 million. So if there’s any DC movie right now that still has potential to do will, it’s this one.
Another movie to definitely not count out is the latest animation movie from Illumination, Migration. Ever since breaking onto the scene with “Despicable Me” in 2010, Illumination has been on fire, with pretty much zero misfires on their resumé. In fact, this year they’re at their absolute peak as they’re fresh of the release of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which made a staggering $1.363 billion worldwide. Their now 13 animated features have averaged $286 million at the domestic box office and $725 million worldwide. “Migration” is them taking a bit of a risk. It’s an original movie, not based on a previous property or a sequel of a previous film. As such, its obviously not expected to do as well. It’s opening 3-day weekend is currently projected in the $15-30 million range. But again, that means less in the holiday season. In 2016, Illumination opened “Sing” around Christmas to $35.3 million and that wound up with $270.8 million. Just Christmas year DreamWorks opened “Puss & Boots: The Last Wish” to just $12.4 million and that held on to eventually make $185.5 million. So if this little movie about a family of ducks catches on, it has the potential to hang around.
Anyone looking for a drama film around Christmas has the option of seeing The Iron Claw, a movie about the Von Erich family, a family dynasty of professional wrestlers. Fritz Von Erich, born Jack Adkisson, was the father of six sons, one of whom died at the age of six and the other five having been professional wrestlers, following in the footsteps of their father. The movie primarily focuses on three of the sons instead of all five and is headlined by Zac Efron as Kevin Von Erich. The brief Wikipedia summary of the plot mentions that the popularized the iron claw wrestling hold, hence the name of the movie, but also mentioned that in addition to fighting their battles in the ring, they had a long string of personal tragedies outside of it. And if you click on the ensuing link to learn about their family, boy did they have quite the long list of personal tragedies, which I’m guessing the movie is going to dive into. Initial reviews on this one are very positive and this could be the type of movie that manages to ride the line of being successful with general audiences while also possibly getting a decent amount of awards attention.
Rounding out the list of varying genres this Christmas, the next genre on the list is romance, with Anyone But You, released by Sony and starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell as our lead couple. The premise sees the couple having a great first date, but then finding their relationship turning ice cold until they are unexpectedly reunited at a wedding in Australia where they decide to “pretend” to be a couple. This certainly has the star power to work, and is directed by Will Gluck, director of “Easy A,” “Friends with Benefits,” and “Peter Rabbit.” But despite that, tracking has this barely on the radar, so perhaps awareness isn’t super high. Or maybe it’s the wrong holiday they’re releasing this on.
The final movie for this initial half of the Christmas weekend is the Indian film Salaar: Part 1 Ceasefire. As mentioned at the top of this post, Indian Cinema has done quite well. We quite frequently see Indian films come seemingly out of nowhere, releasing in a moderate number of theaters, but doing very well on a per theater average. So it’s hard to count this one out. This one appears to be an action film where the leader of one gang tries to keep a promise made to his dying friend by taking on the other criminal gangs.
December 25
Fast forwarding just three days to Christmas Day on Monday, there are the three additional releases. The major one from this trio is The Color Purple. The origins of this movie date back to 1985 with the original movie “The Color Purple,” directed by Steven Spielberg, a movie about a Southern black woman struggling to find her identity after suffering abuse from her father and others over several decades. The movie was nominated for 11 Oscars. It took home none of those. But double digit nominations is still an impressive feat. While it would be accurate to describe this 2023 version as a remake, a more accurate description would be to note that the movie was adapted into a Broadway Musical in 2005. This current movie is a movie adaptation of the musical. As such, if the movie catches on, musicals have a very positive history around the Christmas box office. Early reactions suggest that this could definitely be a big crowd-pleaser. And if it’s even luckier, how close can it come to matching the nomination total of the original at the Oscars?
Warner Bros.' "The Color Purple"
Not a competition vs. Ford this time around, but next up on Christmas will see NEON get Ferrari ready to ride. This comes from director Michael Mann, who directed a trio of 90s hits in “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Heat,” and “The Insider.” He had a fairly decent streak in the early 2000s as well, but has only done one movie since 2009 and that was 2015’s “Blackhat.” So he is back in business and the story he has to tell takes us back to 1957 where Enzo Ferrari, played by Adam Driver, decides to enter the 1,000 mile race across Italy called the Mille Miglia, this after a string of losses puts some of his personal life and business at risk. This also could be a potential awards player, but the early reaction has been a tad bit more mixed than would be necessary for it to break through like “Ford v. Ferrari” did a few years back. But it will at least try to attempt to attract a similar crowd as that one.
The final movie of the long Christmas weekend sees George Clooney back in the director’s chair with The Boys in the Boat. The title of this movie is a fairly appropriate description. It’s about some boys in a boat, specifically taking us back to the 1930s to tell the story of University of Washington’s rowing team that went from their beginnings in the Depression Era to competing at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. This movie has not yet screened to any critics or awards pundits at the time of me posting this and doesn’t seem to be pushing heavily for awards, but along with “Ferrari,” it does give people a second option for a sports movie over the Christmas. Neither are tracking super high at the moment, so maybe directly competing for the same audience might not have been the best idea. And with so many total options, it might be hard for everything to do well in competition, but if reviews turn positive, you never know what could stick around for a bit.
December 29 - 31
There is a final weekend of December. But there are no new wide releases. Whatever movies surface to the top of the box office during a busy Christmas will have plenty of breathing room before something new comes to join the market.
