1. Venom: The Last Dance
Sony Pictures | Week 3
$16.225M Domestic Weekend | $114.8M Domestic Cume
$394.2M Global Cume
Sony’s trilogy-capper Venom: The Last Dance led the box office for a third time during a slow post-election/Veteran’s Day weekend when the Top 3 all performed pretty much right at expectation. It earned $16.225M in 3,905 locations for a PSA of $4,155, a -37% drop from last week. Overall box office is down over 25% from this same frame in 2023 when The Marvels debuted.
Interestingly, newcomers Heretic and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever beat out Venom on Friday when the threequel only pulled $3.95M, but then the superhero movie bounced back Saturday with $7.15M and studio projections show Sunday bringing home $5.125M. IMAX screens for Venom: The Last Dance took $1.5M domestic ($2.3M global) in its third frame, bringing the domestic cume to $10M ($29.6M WW). It’s still the leading title in the format right now.
Internationally the movie brought in another $33M from 22,300+ screens over 66 markets, bringing the international cume to $279.4M ($82.8M from China) and the global haul to $394.2M. It’s will easily cross the $400M milestone sometime in the next week and become Sony’s biggest worldwide earner of 2024 after Bad Boys: Ride or Die‘s $400.5M global take. It will be interesting to see how close this one will get to matching Venom: Let There Be Carnage‘s $501.5M WW take.
2. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Lionsgate | NEW
$11.1M Domestic Opening Weekend
In a photo finish with Heretic, early Sunday estimates have Lionsgate’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever squeaking into the #2 slot, although with margins this tight we’ll have to wait for Monday actuals to call this officially. The faith-based family film from Lionsgate and Kingdom Story Company took in $11.1M from 3,020 locations for a $3,675 PSA, also on the high-end of our forecast.
Here’s how the 3-Day looked…
- Friday – $5M
- Saturday – $3.3M
- Sunday – $2.8M
As part of an incentivized screening program, the film was shown in theaters for one night earlier this week where it earned $2.2M, which is accounted for in this weekend’s earnings. Given the film’s reportedly modest budget, it should continue to perform well enough even with competition for the family dollar next week from Red One.
As with many Christian-friendly movies this year it scored well with its audience, earning an “A” CinemaScore and 98% audience score via Rotten Tomatoes, where it also earned a very positive 89% critical. PostTrak score was 4 1/2 stars with general audiences. The IFC release of Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point didn’t put a dent in Pageant as it died on the vine with $73,500 in 405 locations for a $181 PSA.
3. Heretic
A24 | NEW
$11M Domestic Opening Weekend
After earning considerable critical acclaim, A24’s religious-themed horror picture Heretic delivered an $11,016,055 million opening weekend on 3,221 screens for a PSA of $3,420. The studio is referring to this as Hugh Grant’s “best debut weekend as a leading man in over 20 years,” although Music and Lyrics opened to $13.6M in 2007. Still, the chance to see the romantic comedy icon take a heel turn was clearly too delicious for many to pass up.
Here’s how the 3-Day looked…
- Friday – $4,311,230
- Saturday – $3,880,107
- Sunday – $2,824,718
A24 wisely decided to give this a wide release instead of their typical platforming, although it did not approach the zeitgeist-tapping Civil War debut of $25.5M earlier this year. Heretic performed on the higher-end of our prediction panel’s forecast, with much of that business driven by good word of mouth via 93% RT critical plus 78% audience rating, similar to the 70% positive score from PostTrak. Given that, the CinemaScore was a “C+” which is somewhat expected for a horror film with a divisive subject, yet still a big discrepancy from reviews. This is the same score A24’s Midsommar got in 2019 before banking $46.7M WW. Clearly a portion of the audience did not get the movie that was sold to them, something A24 faced on Civil War as well… although that one earned a “B-“.
Other Notable Performances
Reuniting director George Nolfi with his The Banker star Anthony Mackie, Vertical’s Elevation earned $1.185M from 1,416 locations. With only 54% RT critical, the very A Quiet Place-esque sci-fi survival horror film felt like DTV or streaming fare from the jump.
Crunchyroll’s release (via Sony) of the anime film Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom (subtitled The Holy Kingdom in Japan) took in $1.165M from 621 locations, doing its best business on Friday with $555K. Unlike some theatrical releases in this animation sub-genre, this was not a compilation film.
Warner Bros. took overseas distribution duties on Amazon/MGM’s holiday blockbuster Red One, with the movie taking in an estimated $26.6M on 25,195 screens in 75 international markets including Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and China. That’s on par with the $26M like market opening of 2021’s The Rock vehicle Jungle Cruise. The three-day result for IMAX is $1.4M, while Top 3 territories were the UK ($3.2M), Mexico ($2.3M), and China ($2M). Next weekend it will hit around 4000 North American screens and most certainly take the top spot given the star wattage of Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans combined with holiday appeal. It will be an interesting test to see how much mileage the PG-13 Red One can squeeze out of the Santa Claus vibe, since several recent Saint Nick-centric titles have gone straight-to-streaming (Noelle, Candy Cane Lane, The Christmas Chronicles 1 & 2). Disregarding R-rated entries like Violent Night or Fatman, the most comparable contemporary live-action Santa movie to hit screens was the PG-rated/$100M budgeted disaster Fred Claus starring Vince Vaughn, which bled out with $72M domestic and $97.8M WW back in 2007. Current RT score for Red One is 35% Rotten, which does not bode well for long-term performance considering the trifecta of Wicked, Gladiator II, and Moana 2 are set to gobble up Thanksgiving ticket sales.
Sunday’s Studio Weekend Estimates | Weekend 45 – 2024
Total 3-Day Domestic Estimates: $65,070,968M | (-25.7% vs 2023)
| Title | Weekend Estimate | % Change | Locations | Location Change | PSA | Domestic Total | Week | Distributor |
| Venom: The Last Dance | $16,225,000 | -37% | 3,905 | -226 | $4,155 | $114,819,000 | 3 | Sony Pictures |
| The Best Christmas Pageant Ever | $11,100,000 | 3,020 | $3,675 | $11,100,000 | 1 | Lionsgate | ||
| Heretic | $11,016,055 | 3,221 | $3,420 | $11,016,055 | 1 | A24 | ||
| The Wild Robot | $6,650,000 | -11% | 3,051 | -186 | $2,180 | $130,888,000 | 7 | Universal |
| Smile 2 | $5,000,000 | -26% | 2,822 | -413 | $1,772 | $60,540,000 | 4 | Paramount Pi… |
| Conclave | $4,100,000 | -19% | 2,283 | 487 | $1,796 | $21,513,000 | 3 | Focus Features |
| Anora | $2,455,000 | 36% | 1,104 | 851 | $2,224 | $7,218,392 | 4 | Neon |
| Here | $2,425,000 | -50% | 2,732 | 85 | $888 | $9,502,000 | 2 | Sony Pictures |
| We Live in Time | $2,210,612 | -36% | 1,865 | -1,099 | $1,185 | $21,812,338 | 5 | A24 |
| Terrifier 3 | $1,470,356 | -54% | 1,563 | -794 | $941 | $53,313,195 | 5 | Cineverse |
| Elevation | $1,185,000 | 1,416 | $837 | $1,185,000 | 1 | Vertical Ent… | ||
| Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom | $1,165,000 | 621 | $1,876 | $1,165,000 | 1 | Sony Pictures | ||
| A Real Pain | $282,000 | 23% | 12 | 8 | $23,500 | $600,216 | 2 | Searchlight … |
| The Substance | $235,121 | -52% | 205 | -129 | $1,147 | $15,965,411 | 8 | MUBI |
| Memoir of a Snail | $201,000 | 191% | 467 | 443 | $430 | $374,848 | 3 | IFC Films |
| Transformers One | $163,000 | -58% | 251 | -403 | $649 | $58,904,000 | 8 | Paramount Pi… |
| White Bird: A Wonder Story | $100,000 | -69% | 391 | -561 | $256 | $4,991,424 | 6 | Lionsgate |
| Piece by Piece | $94,000 | -72% | 118 | -408 | $797 | $9,705,000 | 5 | Focus Features |
| Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point | $73,500 | 405 | $181 | $73,500 | 1 | IFC Films | ||
| Saturday Night | $66,000 | -72% | 135 | -318 | $489 | $9,454,000 | 7 | Sony Pictures |
| Bird | $24,104 | 1 | $24,104 | $24,104 | 1 | MUBI | ||
| Dahomey | $8,028 | -48% | 10 | -3.00 | $803 | $70,797 | 3 | MUBI |
| The Fall | $7,192 | -26% | 9 | -1.00 | $799 | $2,574,040 | 862 | Roadside Att… |
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