'The Hunger Games' prequel outlasts its competition while 'The Marvels' falls to No. 3
'The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes' didn't live up to the lofty box office goals of its predecessors but still outdid 'Trolls Band Together' and 'The Marvels.'
Hello! Welcome to The Box Office Report for the weekend of Nov. 17-19, 2023.
Programming note
Popculturology will be off this Friday for Thanksgiving. I hope you all have a great holiday this week.
1. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Weekend gross: $44M
Total domestic gross: $44M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA
The Hunger Games franchise returned to theaters this weekend with The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. The briskly named film is a prequel to the original Hunger Games movie, but its debut fell far behind where the franchise historically opened.
After The Hunger Games opened with $152.5 million in 2012, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ticked up slightly for $158.1 million the following year. While the two-part Mockingjay finale didn’t quite live up to that level ($121.9 million in 2014 and $102.7 million in 2015), all four original Hunger Games movies cracked the $100 million barrier.
While there aren’t any plans for another Hunger Games movie at the moment, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes might give Lionsgate pause on greenlighting another one.
2. Trolls Band Together
Weekend gross: $30.6M
Total domestic gross: $31.8M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA
It’s hard to get a full sense of how a Trolls box office debut should play out since Trolls: World Tour, the second film in the animated franchise, was made available for digital rental instead of having a full theatrical release during the pandemic. Going back to the first Trolls movie, Trolls Band Together fell short of the $46.6 million that one opened with in 2016.
3. The Marvels
Weekend gross: $10.2M
Total domestic gross: $65M
Last weekend: 1st
Percent drop: 78
Speaking of falling short, it was another awful weekend at the box office for The Marvels. I really hoped that the positive word of mouth around the movie along with Iman Vellani’s charming visit with Seth Meyers on Late Night and the video of Teyonah Parrish celebrating her first time seeing her super suit would’ve boosted The Marvel’s second weekend, but instead the bottom fell out of whatever oomph the film had left.
A 78 percent fall is even worse than the 70 percent drop that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania suffered its second weekend earlier this year.
4. Thanksgiving
Weekend gross: $10.2M
Total domestic gross: $10.2M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA
Eli Roth hasn’t released a movie that he directed since we got both Death Wish and The House with a Clock in Its Walls in 2018. I guess the market isn’t ripe for a Thanksgiving horror film?
5. Five Nights at Freddy’s
Weekend gross: $3.5M
Total domestic gross: $132.6M
Last weekend: 2nd
Percent drop: 16
Five Nights at Freddy’s joins The Marvels as the only holdover from last week, with Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour falling out of the top five in its sixth weekend of release.
Box office numbers via The Numbers based on Sunday estimates.
