Sunday, December 4, 2016

Moana Sea's Second Weekend Victory At The Box Office In Post-Thanksgiving Weekend

Moana managed to win the box office again this weekend, scoring a $28.3 million second weekend, a 50% decline from last weekend. Compared to past second weekend dips for animated family films that opened over Thanksgiving, Moana actually had a much smaller second-weekend decline than Tangled (56%), Frozen (53%) and Toy Story 2 (52%). Moana has now taken in $119.8 million in 12 days of domestic release, putting it about 11% behind the box office cume of Frozen's first 10 days in wide release. Also worth mentioning is that it brought up Disney's total 2016 domestic gross to $2.491 billion, the biggest yearly domestic sum for any studio in history. And they still have several weeks of Moana box office, not to mention a little movie called Rogue One, to go!
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Moana wasn't the only film to hold well at the post-Thanksgiving box office this weekend. Typically, films dip 55+% in this frame since the Thanksgiving weekend gets a massive boost from people being off for the holiday, but a couple of movies had smaller than expected drops this frame. For instance, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them lost 59% and grossed $18.5 million this weekend, a smaller post-Thanksgiving dip than any of the Hunger Game & Twilight sequels and also was tinier than the post-Thanksgiving drops for the fifth and seventh Harry Potter films. Fantastic Beasts has now grossed $183.5 million in 17 days and its final domestic gross could land anywhere in the $225-240 million range depending on how many of its screens it can retain over the lucrative Christmas holidays.

The real champ in terms of box office stamina this weekend was Arrival, which scooted up two spots from last weekend to come in at third place this weekend and gross $7.3 million, a 36% dip from last weekend which is the twentieth best post-Thanksgiving decline of all-time. Arrival has now grossed $73 million domestically, already more than tripling its opening weekend in just four weeks of release. Looks like this one will end its domestic run just under or over $90 million, an impressive achievement for this drama.

Allied lost 44% this weekend to gross $7 million in its second weekend. While better than many other post-Thanksgiving declines, that's nowhere near strong enough of a hold to compensate for its disastrous opening weekend last weekend. Allied has now grossed only $28.9 million in 12 days. Rounding out the top five was Doctor Strange, which grossed $6.4 million in its fifth weekend of release, a 53% drop that's comparable to the post-Thanksgiving drop of Skyfall from four years ago. Doctor Strange has grossed a strong $215.4 million after five weeks of release.

Trolls took a major plummet this weekend, losing 57% (comparable to fellow early November animated family movie Big Hero 6's post-Thanksgiving decline, though that film had a much larger fifth weekend gross) and grossed $4.6 million to take its domestic cume to $141.3 million. Also in its fifth week of release was Hacksaw Ridge, which had the second-best dip in the top ten this weekend to go down only 38% to gross another $3.4 million, bringing its domestic haul to $57.2 million. Bad Santa 2 grossed $3.2 million this weekend, a 47% dip that's similar to the one experienced by fellow R-rated comedy sequel that opened over Thanksgiving Horrible Bosses 2. Bad Santa 2 has now grossed just $14.2 million in 12 days and will struggle to get past $20 million domestically.

Incarnate, the third film from BlumHouse Tilt (distributed by High Top Releasing) grossed $2.6 million at 1,737 locations for a per-theater average of $1,531. That's a pretty poor opening (it's about 45% below the debut of fellow BlumHouse Tilt title The Darkness from earlier this year) and it's doubtful it sticks in over 300 theaters for more than 14 days. We shall see if future BlumHouse Tilt titles like The Belko Experiment, Sleight and Lowriders can perform better than their first three titles which have all been duds thus far.

Expanding into more locations this weekend was Manchester By The Sea, which grossed a great $2.3 million at only 156 theaters for a per-theater average of $15,151. Manchester By The Sea has now grossed $4.4 million in 17 days of limited release play and seems set up for a financially lucrative run when it expands into wide release on December 16th. The Edge Of Seventeen continued to falter at the box office, even with a 44% decline that was lower than many post-Thanksgiving dips. Grossing only $1.6 million, The Edge Of Seventeen has now grossed only $12.7 million after 17 days of release.

Loving eased 41% this weekend while adding 25 theaters, grossing an additional $997,000 to bring its domestic sum to a solid $5.5 million. It should also be noted that Moonlight is turning out to be a steady performer in limited release, going down an incredible 25% (remember, this is a post-Thanksgiving frame where most releases lose over 50%) to gross another $915,750. It has now grossed $9.8 million domestically after playing for 45 days. Also holding exceptionally well was Nocturnal Animals, which shed a tiny 18% to gross $686,095, bringing its domestic cume to $2.7 million. It'll be interesting to see how this one performs when it goes into wide release this coming weekend.

Down in seventeenth place was a new wide release, Believe, a Christmas-themed Christian movie that grossed only $602,519. It'll become the only nineteenth movie ever for indie distributor Freestyle Releasing to gross over $1 million domestically, but that's the only major victory this one can claim to its name. Meanwhile, Rules Don't Apply collapsed after its dismal Thanksgiving opening, grossing only $555,000, a 65% plummet from last weekend. After ten days of release, Rules Don't Apply has grossed only $3.3 million.

Jackie debuted to an outstanding $275,000 from 5 locations this weekend, good for a per-theater average of $55,000, the sixth best per-theater average of 2016. This one's planning to expand into more theaters (though not quite into wide release) over Christmas and don't be shocked if it rides award buzz and rave reviews to solid box office. Lion grossed $120,234, a 2.5% decline despite expanding into 17 theaters. This one's doing decent right now but it playing considerably below past late-November Weinstein Company dramas. Finally, Miss Sloane grossed a solid $44,000 (a 26% dip from last weekend) for a per-theater average of $11,000. This one goes into wide release on Friday.

The top 12 movies at the box office grossed $88.2 million this weekend, a 2% dip from the same weekend last year and the fifth best 49th weekend in any given year.

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