Weekend predictions: Wonka looks to lead at the box office going into the New Year

December 29, 2023

Wonka

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom topped the chart last weekend, and The Color Purple had the second-best opening Christmas Day ever, but our model thinks Wonka will enter the New Year as champion at the box office, based on the performance of all films since Christmas Day.

Predictions this weekend are considerably complicated by the twin fact that Christmas fell on a Monday, and that all but one of the films in the top eight have opened in the past seven days. Last weekend’s box office takings were decreased quite a bit by Christmas Eve, which tends to be a slow day in theaters, and takings on Christmas Day don’t necessarily tell us a huge amount about this weekend.

With those caveats in mind, here’s what the model thinks that top 10 will look like.

Wonka looks like it could win the weekend quite handily, and there’s reason to believe it’ll have an excellent weekend. Its closest comp is The Greatest Showman, which post a 76% increase on this weekend in 2017. That was the first clear sign that film was going on to great things (it ended the weekend, its second in theaters, with $49 million domestically, but ended its run with $174 million in the bank). Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle delivered a 38% increase on the same weekend. So a 58% increase for Wonka certainly seems on the cards.

By the same logic, Migration should do well this weekend, and the model thinks it’ll increase its take by 57%.

More surprisingly, Anyone But You is predicted to increase by the same amount, and finish in fourth place with a little under $9.5 million. That seems ambitious on the surface, but its the only film to have posted day-to-day gains at the box office since Christmas Day, and it might turn out to be a good piece of counter-programming as we near the New Year, and less family-friendly films become attractive to people who might have had quite enough of family for a while.

The biggest surprise though is the performance of The Color Purple, which had a great day on Monday (Christmas Day), and has been falling rapidly since. It will place fourth on the chart for Thursday, less than $500,000 ahead of Anyone But You, a film it beat by over $16 million on its opening day. Perhaps it’ll bounce back from its swift descent this weekend, and earn enough to finish fourth or higher. Its day-to-day performance is concerning so far.

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Filed under: Weekend Preview, The Greatest Showman, Migration, The Color Purple, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Wonka, Anyone But You