Weekend Wrap-Up: Moana Sails to Victory with $28.27 million
December 6, 2016
As expected, Moana dominated the weekend box office chart with a $10 million lead over its nearest competitor earning $28.27 million. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them also did well with $18.12 million. Unfortunately, those were the only two films to earn more than $10 million over the weekend and this left the overall box office down a massive 48% from last weekend to just $95 million. Worse still, this is 2.8% lower than the same weekend last year. I’m actually surprised it’s that close, because there were four films that earned more than $10 million last year, including the biggest new release, Krampus. 2016 was able to crack $10 billion before the weekend and has a very substantial lead at $10.12 billion to $9.66 billion for 2015.
Moana fell just 50% during its second weekend of release earning $28.27 million for a two-week total of $119.79 million. Normally, a 50% drop-off would be terrible for a family film; however, this is the weekend after Thanksgiving, so a 50% drop-off is amazing. Its reviews, its A from CinemaScore, and the holidays should help it thrive at the box office until the end of the year. However, it won’t thrive as well as Frozen did, because it will have to deal with massive competition and direct competition before Christmas day.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them added $18.12 million over the weekend pushing its running tally to $183.08 million. Its 60% drop-off was the worst in the top ten, but it was better than all but one previous Harry Potter film that was playing this time of year. The first film fell 59%. Fantastic Beasts’ theater average is $4,543 and will likely fall below $2,500 next weekend. This means it will lose a lot of its nearly 4,000 theaters to Rogue One when that film opens. That said, getting to $200 million by this time next week should be doable, while it could hit $800 million worldwide.
Arrival held on better than expected down just 37% to $7.27 million over the weekend for a total of $73.05 million after four weeks of release. It’s on pace to hit $100 million, thanks in part to the holidays. This is great news for Paramount, as they’ve had the worst year of the big six studios.
On the other hand, Allied cost more to make and it is pulling in less at the box office. This week it earned fourth place with $7.03 million for a two-week total of $28.90 million. Its theater average will drop below $2,000 next weekend and that will result in a serious hit to its theater count when Rogue One debuts a week after that.
Doctor Strange has already made enough to be a hit, so landing in fifth place with $6.68 million over the weekend is just icing on the cake. The film now has $215.51 million after a month of release and it is on pace to earn nearly $700 million worldwide. Unless the film cost over $100 million for its global P&A, it will break even before it hits the home market. If the film’s P&A budget was almost as much as its production budget, however, it will break even early in its home market run.
The only new release in the top ten was Incarnate, which landed in ninth place with $2.53 million on 1,737 screens. Its theater average is well below $2,000 missing the Mendoza Line. Furthermore, its reviews are just 20% positive and it only managed a C minus from CinemaScore. It will disappear as soon as theater owners are contractually able to drop it.
Looking in on the sophomore class, we find Bad Santa 2 in 8th place with $3.29 million over the weekend for a total of $14.29 million after two weeks of release. Its theater average is barely more than $1,000, so it will lose a lot of its theaters this coming week. Rules Don’t Apply virtually disappeared down 66% to just $543,000 over the weekend for a total of just $3.31 million after two weeks of release.
- Weekend Box Office Chart
- Incarnate Comparisons
Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Moana, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Doctor Strange, Arrival, Incarnate, Allied, Bad Santa 2, Rules Don’t Apply, Harry Potter