It may be unclear whether we will get more Christmas weekends like this, but for now, movie theaters will be getting the sort of variety and quantity they have been clamoring for from Hollywood to boost the box office.
Of course, 20th Century/Lightstorm’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” will easily hold on to No. 1 over the four-day Christmas period, as roughly a fifth of all presale tickets for the sci-fi tentpole were for this coming weekend. Theatrical insiders tell TheWrap that they expect an extended second weekend of around $75 million, with around $60 million coming from the Fri.-Sun. period.
A $60 million 3-day weekend for “Avatar 3” would be roughly a 33% drop from its $89 million opening. There are no exact comparisons to any past holiday releases; but in 2014, a year in which Christmas fell on a Thursday, Warner Bros.’ “The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies” opened on a Wednesday, earned a Fri.-Sun. opening of $54.7 million before Christmas and had a 25% second weekend drop.
So this result for “Fire and Ash” would hold consistent with many holiday blockbusters below the elite-tier of tentpoles like “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
Meanwhile, Paramount’s “The SpongeBob Movie: The Search for SquarePants” will look to draw out families with younger kids against Angel’s faith-based “David,” which will try to exhibit the same legs with Christian families as the Provo studio’s Easter animated release “The King of Kings” after its $22 million opening.
But don’t be surprised if Disney’s “Zootopia 2” gets a second wind from the holidays and tops both of these films despite being in its fifth weekend. On Monday, the furry sequel earned $4.3 million, topping the $3.5 million of “David” and the $2.8 million of “SpongeBob.” With three well-received animated offerings, the theaters are the big winners no matter the outcome.
And for general audiences who don’t want to put on 3D glasses, there are three new wide-release films hitting theaters alongside the second weekend of Lionsgate’s “The Housemaid”: Sony’s creature comedy “Anaconda,” Focus Features’ feel-good musical romcom “Song Sung Blue,” and A24’s wildly acclaimed “Marty Supreme.”
“Anaconda” is projected to lead the newcomers with a 4-day opening of $20 million against a reported $45 million budget. The film stars Jack Black and Paul Rudd as a pair of best friends who travel to the jungle to foolishly remake their favorite film, the 1997 cult classic “Anaconda.” Of course, all hell breaks loose when an actual anaconda attacks them on their shoot.
As a broad action comedy with just a sprinkling of horror thrown in, “Anaconda” will try to ride the star power of Jack Black, who has helped elevate the “Jumanji” revival films and this year’s “A Minecraft Movie” to box office success. But it will have to do so without critical support, as reviews have been largely negative with a 37% Rotten Tomatoes score.
“Song Sung Blue” will seek to be the film of choice for older, predominantly white audiences. Directed by Craig Brewer, the film stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as a pair of performers who start a Neil Diamond cover band and fall in love.
Critics were more favorable for this film with a 74% Rotten Tomatoes score, and tracking is predicting a $10-14 million 4-day opening against a reported $30 million budget.
Mixing the promise of seeing the musically talented Jackman sing classic music hits — the tried-and-true allure of most music biopics — while providing a story that pulls on the heartstrings, “Song Sung Blue” is the sort of film that would be a guaranteed mid-budget hit in a bygone era where dramas for the above-50 crowd were more common.
Now, it’s no longer a guarantee that good reviews and populist ingredients are enough to get films like these out of the “wait until streaming” category in the eyes of most in the core audience, as seen by the $10 million theatrical run of Searchlight’s Brendan Fraser drama “Rental Family.”
Still, insiders at Focus Features told TheWrap when the acclaimed spy thriller “Black Bag” struggled at the box office — and which has since found traction on streaming — that it wasn’t going to give up on genres and stories that have become less common on the big screen.
If there was ever going to be a time when seniors want to get out of the house and do something special, it’s the holidays. Even with all the changes in entertainment, that hasn’t changed, and “Song Sung Blue” is banking on the belief that holiday moviegoing will still be an option for an older demo if they see movies that they like on the showtime listings.
Finally, there’s “Marty Supreme,” which hits theaters after months of hype and dozens, if not hundreds, of sold-out screenings in limited release. After scoring the best per theater average of the past nine years with $875,000 from just six screens last weekend, the Josh Safdie thriller starring Timothée Chalamet has seen its 4-day projects rise as high as $20 million, though theatrical sources say they predict an extended launch in the mid-teens.
Starring Chalamet as an egotistical table tennis player whose failed attempt to become world champion causes his personal life to collapse, “Marty Supreme” has earned acclaim from critics with a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score and has earned huge social media buzz among the cinephiles in the 18-35 demo. That has been helped by a whirlwind press tour by Chalamet in which he tapped into the charisma and ego of his character in interviews while making a “Marty Supreme” jacket into the fashion statement of the year.
With a reported budget of $70 million before marketing, “Marty Supreme” will need to become one of A24’s highest-grossing films to turn a profit from theatrical grosses alone. But at least one benchmark that it should clear if its hype leads to true widespread interest is the $50 million run of Josh Safdie’s last film, “Uncut Gems” in 2019, a figure it reached despite polarizing wider audiences.
“Marty Supreme” may have a similar effect beyond those who’ve already bought into the hype, but if it has a run as fruitful as A24 record holder “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” that will be a testament to Chalamet’s star power.
With all these films in theaters, the box office may finally have a weekend in which all of the Top 5 films gross at least $10 million, something that was once common before the pandemic but has become a rarity with the drop in the number of films released. If the domestic box office is going to miraculously finish with an annual total of $9 billion — it currently stands at $8.37 billion with eight days to go — that needs to happen at the absolute minimum.
