‘Wonka’ wins the weekend, but is it the treat Warner Bros. had hoped for?
Timothée Chalamet danced his way to the top of the box office.
Hello! Welcome to The Box Office Report for the weekend of Dec. 15-17, 2023.
Programming note
The Box Office Report will be off until Jan. 8, 2024. The weekly Popculturology newsletter will hit your inboxes this Friday and then be off next until Jan. 5. I hope you all have (and are having) a great holiday season.
1. Wonka
Weekend gross: $39M
Total domestic gross: $39M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA
I’d imagine Warner Bros. had envisioned Timothée Chalamet’s Wonka as a bigger blockbuster than its $39 million debut. Johnny Depp and Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opened with $56.2 million in 2005.
Weirdly, director Paul King doesn’t have a track record of big opening weekends. Based on the universal love for his Paddington movies, you’d think that those films had cleaned up at the box office. Nope. The original Paddington opened with $19 million on its way to a $76.2 million domestic haul. Paddington 2 opened with $11 million on its way to a $40.9 million domestic haul.
2. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Weekend gross: $5.8M
Total domestic gross: $145.2M
Last weekend: 2nd
Percent drop: 38
The Hunger Games prequel has some impressive staying power. Now in its fifth weekend in theaters, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes finished in second place again, adding another $5.8 million to its domestic haul.
The prequel still lags way behind the previous records for Hunger Games movies, with its $145.2 million domestic gross way behind The Hugner Games: Mockingjay — Part 2’s $281.7 million domestic gross.
3. The Boy and the Heron
Weekend gross: $5.2M
Total domestic gross: $23.1M
Last weekend: 1st
Percent drop: 60
After making history at No. 1 last weekend, The Boy and the Heron tumbled 60 percent this weekend to finish at No. 3.
4. Godzilla Minus One
Weekend gross: $4.9M
Total domestic gross: $34.3M
Last weekend: 3rd
Percent drop: 43
Love seeing Godzilla Minus One still in the top five. While its $34.3 million domestic gross isn’t anything huge, people are still seeing and talking about Minus One.
wrote about Godzilla Minus One in the latest edition of his newsletter, highlighting how important it was for the film to reset Godzilla back to his original “terrible majesty.”
When Godzilla rampages in Godzilla Minus One, it’s not exhilarating. When he powered up his atomic breath, I wasn’t excited that he was about to go off like I was in 2014’s Godzilla. I was scared. The way Yamazaki shoots the movie and what he does on a relatively limited budget (especially compared to the recent Legendary efforts) is astounding because he conveys not only the size of the beast, but his threat.
Give Goldberg’s piece on Godzilla Minus One a read here.
5. Trolls Band Together
Weekend gross: $4M
Total domestic gross: $88.7M
Last weekend: 4th
Percent drop: 34
Part of me wants to say that Trolls Band Together has stuck around for five weekends due to it being the only family friendly film in the mix, but how would that explain Wish? Disney’s latest animated film came out a week after Trolls Band Together but has already disappeared from the top five.
Box office numbers via The Numbers based on Sunday estimates.
