The post-Thanksgiving doldrums at the box office are easing somewhat thanks to a pair of new releases from independent distributors: AMC/Variance’s “Renaissance,” the new concert film from Beyonce; and the return of the king of kaijus with Toho’s “Godzilla Minus One”
“Renaissance” is leading the charts with a solid $24.5 million opening from 2,539 theaters, including some Imax support. Pre-weekend projections had the film earning around $20 million, but exhibition sources told TheWrap that a result closer to $25 million was possible with enough walk-up ticket sales.
AMC is turning to top music artists to directly release concert films in theaters without the aid of traditional Hollywood studios, allowing theaters to keep a greater percentage of ticket revenue with the films filling in gaps left behind by the studios on the release slate.
The experiment kicked off to great success in October with Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour,” shattering the concert film box office record with a $92.8 million start and grossing $250 million worldwide.
“Renaissance” was neither expected nor needed to come anywhere near that total, but a $24.5 million start is enough to put Beyonce among the top 5 highest concert film openings ever before inflation adjustment.
“Godzilla Minus One” is in third on the charts this weekend with an industry estimated $10.8 million from 2,308 theaters, meeting pre-release projections. Distributed in the U.S. by Emick Media, “Godzilla Minus One” has been hailed by critics and “Godzilla” fans in both Japan and internationally as a return to the monster franchise’s postwar roots in the 1950s, earning a 97% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and an A on CinemaScore.
Holdover results are mixed this weekend, with the best performer being Lionsgate’s “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” in second place with an industry estimated $15 million in its third weekend. That would give the prequel a running domestic total of $122 million, enough to put it in the top 20 on the annual charts.
On the other end of the spectrum is Disney’s “Wish,” which is seeing any hope of getting its theatrical run saved by long legs fade away with a poor $6.8 million second weekend. Depending on how the rest of the weekend plays out, “Wish” could fall out of the top 5 and slide below the third weekend of Universal/DreamWorks’ “Trolls Band Together,” which is currently estimated to earn $7 million.
Through two weekends in theaters, “Wish” is estimated to earn $41 million domestically, behind the $65 million that Disney/Pixar’s “Elemental” earned to this point. While the comparison isn’t exact as “Elemental” had the advantage of kids being out of school for the summer, “Wish” needed to show better legs to signal that it has enough audience traction to survive against competition from upcoming family films like Warner Bros.’ “Wonka” and Universal/Illumination’s “Migration.”
