‘Frozen 2’ set a new Thanksgiving Weekend box office record, earning $85.2M from Friday-Sunday, and $126.3M from Wednesday-Sunday, beating ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’. Even more impressive is that ‘Frozen 2’ is in its second weekend, whereas ‘Catching Fire’ opened over Thanksgiving Weekend. There had been some concern over the fact that the first ‘Frozen’ opened six years ago, which meant a lot of the kids that saw it then are now tweens or teens. But it looks like a younger wave of kids has embraced the franchise thanks to home video. Adobe Analytics (via Deadline) reports that ‘Frozen’ dolls were flying off the shelves on Black Friday, second only behind the LOL Surprise dolls.
Lionsgate/Media Rights’ comedic mystery ‘Knives Out’ drew the adult crowd and greatly overshot estimates that it would make between $20M-$30M over five days. Instead, it grossed $27M for the weekend and $41.7M five-day.
Directed by ‘The Last Jedi’s Rian Johnson, this film is tracking 24% ahead of another star-studded mystery movie, 2017’s ‘Murder on the Orient Express’. Reportedly, the mixture of stars in ‘Knives Out’ is helping it appeal to a broad demographic. Jamie Lee Curtis heads up the cast, which also includes Toni Collette, Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, Christopher Plummer, Michael Shannon, and LaKeith Stanfield.
Audiences love it and gave it an A- via CinemaScore, and 4½ stars out of 5 via PostTrak. Critics love it too, with its Rotten Tomatoes aggregate score at an amazing 96%.
‘Ford V Ferrari’ is still zipping right along at #3, with ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’ at #4.
Another newcomer lands at #5, the weighty drama ‘Queen & Slim’ which clocked $11.7M 3-day and a $15.8M 5-day. The two largest markets for this picture were New York City and Atlanta, and it did well all across the East Coast and South. Audiences love it, giving it 5 stars on PostTrak, and giving it an A- CinemaScore. Critics are also favorable, with its RT score a healthy 84%.
TOP FIVE
- Frozen 2 (Disney) – $85.2M (3-Day)/$123.7M (5-Days)
- Knives Out (Lionsgate/Media Rights) – $27M (3-Day)/$41.7M (5-Day)
- Ford V Ferrari (20th Century Fox/Disney) – $13.2M (3-Day)/$19M (5-Day)
- A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Sony) – $11.8M (3-Day)/$17.2M (5-Day)
- Queen & Slim (Universal/Media Rights/Bron) – $5.8M (3-Day)/$15.8M (5-Day)
There is very little opening next week. There’s Amazon’s ‘The Aeronauts’, which the streaming service/studio is hoping people will pay big bucks to see on the big screen, especially on IMAX. But the movie will begin streaming in late December, so some people may not feel it’s worth the price to see in theaters. There’s also ‘Playmobil: The Movie’.
