While nothing at the box office is performing as strong as last year’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” the current pack of films in theaters, led by Warner Bros.’ “Wonka,” has pushed 2023’s domestic annual total past $9 billion on the final weekend of the year.
Industry estimates have overall grosses for the weekend reaching $118 million — enough to push annual totals past the $9 billion mark on Saturday. While final annual totals won’t be reported by Comscore until Tuesday, 2023’s domestic haul will be around 22% ahead of the $7.36 billion grossed in 2022. But that’s still 20% behind the $11.3 billion grossed in 2019 before COVID-19 shut down theaters. (Of course, that was also the year that saw the release of smash-hit blockbusters, include Marvel Studios’ peak with “Avengers: Endgame.”)
Leading the pack this weekend is “Wonka” with an industry estimated $23.7 million in its third weekend. That total rises to $31.8 million when New Year’s Day estimates are included. Sometime this coming week, “Wonka” will pass $150 million domestic and $400 million worldwide.
Warner/DC’s “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is second with a $19.3 million 3-day/$26.3 million 4-day total in its second weekend, the latter representing a 32% drop from the superhero film’s anemic $38.3 million extended opening.
While that’s a better second weekend hold than any of the other DC releases this year, as well as those of the Marvel Studios’ films “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “The Marvels,” it is also the only double-digit drop of any film in this weekend’s top 10.
“Aquaman 2” is estimated to have an $84.6 million domestic total through New Year’s Day. With a global cume of $258.6 million, it will become DC’s highest grossing film of 2023 — even as it falls hundreds of millions short of the $1.15 billion total earned by the first “Aquaman” in winter 2018-19.
Illumination/Universal’s “Migration” is in third as it tries to leg out after a slow start on Christmas weekend. The animated film is showing some staying power in the U.S. with $22.3 million, though it won’t have anywhere near the overseas run of “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” a year ago — the film’s $59.3 million domestic total through Monday is currently the majority of its $105 million global running cume.
Warner Bros./Amblin’s “The Color Purple” is fourth with an estimated $17.7 million 4-day total in its first weekend in theaters. Released on Christmas Day, the acclaimed Blitz Bazawule musical is estimated to gross $50 million domestic in its first week in theaters, though only time will tell whether its strong word-of-mouth will allow it to draw a significant number of moviegoers beyond its core Black, older-skewing audience.
Sony/Columbia’s romantic comedy “Anyone But You” completes the top 5 with a 4-day $11.5 million total in its second weekend, giving it a running total of $27.5 million against a reported $25 million budget. Just behind it is Amazon MGM’s “The Boys in the Boat” with $11 million over four days, giving George Clooney’s sports biopic a total of $24.6 million since its Christmas Day release.
