Weekend Wrap-Up: Queen Rocks, but Doesn’t Ragnarok
November 6, 2018
Bohemian Rhapsody’s final weekend numbers beat expectations and it even beat Sunday’s estimates, which is excellent news for Fox. It’s also good news for the box office as a whole, which rose 39% from last weekend reaching $145 million. On the down wide, $145 million isn’t that much more than what Thor: Ragnarok earned this weekend last year and 2018 was behind 2017 by 19% on the year-over-year comparison. Fortunately, the gains during the week were better than the loses over the weekend and 2018’s lead over 2017 grew to $1.002 billion or 11.5% as of the end of business on Sunday, at $9.73 billion to $8.73 billion. This lead will begin to shrink at a rather rapid pace, but there’s not enough weeks left in the year to completely evaporate this lead.
Bohemian Rhapsody’s box office numbers are undoubtedly buoyed by its soundtrack more than any other element at play here, as it earned first place with a dominant $51.06 million. The critics liked the movie, but not as much as audiences, which gave the film an A from CinemaScore and a 4.5 out of 5 from PostTrak. This is great news for Fox, which has had a terrible year outside of Deadpool 2. To emphasize this fact, Bohemian Rhapsody is already the studio’s third highest grossing film released in 2018 and will quickly overtake Maze Runner: The Death Cure for second place.
On the other hand, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms will be Disney’s worst box office performer of the year after managing just $20.35 million over the weekend. Its reviews are just 35% positive, and while it did better with CinemaScore (B plus) and PostTrak (3 out of 5) audience reaction still suggests relatively short legs. Granted, it is a family film and Thanksgiving is coming up, but it still won’t be enough to save this film’s domestic run.
Nobody’s Fool grabbed third place with $13.74 million during its opening weekend. This is not as strong as most of Tyler Perry’s movies open, but it wasn’t a Madea movie, so that does affect the average. Its reviews won’t help, as they are just 23% positive, but it did earn an A minus from CinemaScore and a 4 out of 5 from PostTrak, so its target audience liked the movie more than the critics did.
A Star is Born landed in fourth place with $11.00 million over the weekend for a total of $165.54 million after a month of release. It is still on pace for $200 million domestically, but it could need some Awards Season success to get there.
Halloween fell from first to fifth with $10.83 million over the weekend for a three-week total of $150.22 million. If it earned just that during its entire worldwide run, it would have been a box office success. Earning this much domestically after just three weeks is stunning.
The only sophomore stint film not in the top five was Hunter Killer, which fell to ninth place with $3.53 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $12.97 million. It only fell 47%, which is better than a lot of similar films manage, but it is a case of too little, too late.
- Bohemian Rhapsody Comparisons
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- The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Comparisons
- Nobody’s Fool Comparison
Filed under: Madea, Tyler Perry