Tis the season for … leftovers?
It seems like the movie industry looked in its cinematic refrigerator and said, “Man, we gotta use some of this stuff.” So it tossed every movie it found on its shelves and threw it into theaters. But no matter: Moviegoers wanted a repeat of their cinematic Thanksgiving feast.
Disney’s Moana 2 proved to be the biggest bird of the bunch. It followed up its record-setting Thanksgiving five-day weekend with another box-office win. It earned an estimated $52 million In North America over the weekend, boosting its cumulative domestic gross to $300 million. That makes Moana 2 the year’s fifth highest-earning movie in less than two weeks of work.
The animated film has earned $300 million overseas, too, which brings its global total to a gigantic $600 million.
Wicked: Part 1 might not have won the weekend. But is it still popular? You bet it is. The film continues to dance through its cinematic life, collecting nearly $34.9 million to finish second. Its overall domestic earnings stand at $320.5 million—the year’s fourth highest-grossing film. Why, the movie is practically defying gravity.
And while neither film is perfect, it’s still kinda nice to see two PG-rated musicals at the top of the box office, isn’t it?
Gladiator II held onto its own spot in the top three by earning another $12.5 million. The Ridley Scott-directed sequel has now earned $132.7 million.
Yep, same ol, same ol, right? But after Gladiator, box-office predictability goes out the window.
Pushpa: The Rule—Part 2 (a more-than-three-hour Telgu-language action film) took fourth place with a $9.3 million weekend. It was one of nine new releases to land in the box office’s top 20. Its success pushed the Christmas film Red One to fifth ($7 million).
A re-release of the Christopher Nolan film Interstellar landed in sixth place with $4.4 million. The anime release of Solo Leveling: ReAwakening finished seventh with $2.4 million.
The retro horror flick Y2K earned $2.1 million to finish eighth, barely edging out For King & Country’s concert film, A Little Drummer Boy Christmas ($2.06 million).
Werewolves proved to be, well, a bit of a box-office dog. Despite opening on more than 1,300 screens, it earned just $1.1 million to finish 11th. Meanwhile, Jude Law’s crime thriller The Order landed with a chaotic thud in 12th, banking just $900,000.
5 Responses
It’s too bad everyone has forgotten about “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” so soon after it came out.
The movie seems stupid to me and I normally like Christian movies and Christmas movies alike, but the previews just make it seem too corny and stupid. Just like last years atrocious hippy dippy Jesus Revolution.
Guess I prefer my Christian films to be more like the five God’s Not Dead films, or Soul Surfer, or the recent Left Behind films, or even stuff like Miracles from Heaven or Noah or The Ten Commandments.
And as far as Christmas movies are concerned I prefer films like Elf, Home Alone, The Santa Clause, Rise of the Guardians, Last Christmas, Grandma got run over by a reindeer, Arthur Christmas, The year without a Santa Claus, The little drummer boy, A Christmas Carol, The Grinch, etc.
I realize I’m in the minority, but I ended up HATING “Interstellar.” I had high hopes for the movie. It certainly began promisingly, and the wormhole sequence was literally awesome to experience. But then the movie got increasingly ridiculous, what with inexplicable tidal waves, floating ice clouds, and bad dialogue. When Anne Hathaway got all weepy about how “love transcends time and space,” I thought my eyes were going to roll out of my head. Christopher Nolan is such a hit-or-miss director for me. He’s done some great work, such as “Dunkirk” and “Inception.” but “Interstellar” just didn’t work for my inner astronomer.
You’re right about Interstellar, although I liked it overall. The funny thing is that a lot of the more implausible bits (like the tidal waves) were based on solid astrophysics. The movie would have worked better if Nolan had leaned into those concepts and avoided the clunky sentimentality that marred the last half-hour.
Nolan operates best on a visceral level of grand spectacle, which makes him an awkward match for hard sci-fi. Interstellar needed a more clinical approach. Just imagine what Kubrick would have done with that movie.
The same goes for Spielberg’s AI, which originated as a Kubrick project and almost gets derailed by Spielbergian sentimentality toward the end. Like Interstellar, it’s a good movie that could have been a classic.
While I’ve never seen the film, I have looked it up. From what I read, the ending was actually Kubrick’s idea, with Spielberg keeping it after his death.