Welcome back to Box Office Breakdown, the weekly segment where I analyze the top ten highest grossing films of the past weekend. As theatres continue to reopen and prepare for an onslaught of new theatrical releases, we will be analyzing the state of the box office, as well as VOD and streaming.
After a brief hiatus, Box Office Breakdown is officially back! Select districts in Ontario are currently on lockdown due to the increased amount of cases in congested areas, so many theatres haven’t been open for business. This also happens to be the case in the U.S., which significantly impacted the Box Office results over the long weekend. American Thanksgiving is typically a huge weekend in terms of Box Office revenue, but this year the results were unfortunately disappointing. That being said, there was one film that was able to become somewhat of a Box Office hit, despite all of the limitations that are preventing theatrical releases from succeeding.
The Croods: A New Age grossed over $12M domestically over the four day weekend, which is nearly unprecedented in this climate. Its predecessor was a major Box Office success for Dreamworks Animation, grossing over $587M worldwide, with an opening weekend of $44M domestically, so its not a total surprise that the film was a success. Considering it is the only new family film currently playing in theatres, its safe to assume that the film will dominate at the Box Office throughout the next few weeks.
This past week also saw the release of several streaming titles. Ron Howard’s Oscar-bait drama Hillbilly Elegy dropped on Netflix this past Tuesday and received extremely negative reviews, taking it out of the Oscar conversation almost entirely (aside from potentially Glenn Close’s performance). That being said, the film has gained a significant amount of attention from mass audiences, largely due to its A-list leads. The film has floated around the bottom half of Netflix’s Top 10 Trending charts since its initial release.
The holiday rom-com Happiest Season was released on Hulu and has gained widespread attention, with many predicting that will become a Christmas staple in years to come. The film has garnered very positive reviews from critics, as well as audiences and is being hailed as the feel-good movie of the year.
Melissa McCarthy’s AI-themed comedy Superintelligence was released on HBO max and received mostly negative reviews from both critics and audiences. While the film has gained some attention from the masses, it seems to have suffered coming out the same week as Happiest Season.
Here are the top 10 highest grossing films domestically from the past weekend (Not including the four day weekend):
10) National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation: 2020 Re-release (Week 1: $170K)
9) The Santa Clause: 2020 Re-release (Week 2: $170K)
8) Tenet (Week 13: $300M)
7) Elf: 2020 Re-release (Week 3: $320K)
6) Honest Thief (Week 8: $350K)
5) Come Play (Week 5: $374K)
4) Let Him Go (Week 4: $454K)
3) The War With Grandpa (Week 6: $585K)
2) Freaky (Week 3: $800K)
1) The Croods: A New Age (Week 1: $9.7M)
In the coming weeks, we will continue to analyze the state of VOD releases and will provide updates regarding upcoming films.
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