With the three-day weekend that’ll be viewed more as a five-day when all is said and done thanks to Christmas being on a Tuesday and a lot of people off, this weekend is a very busy one with new releases.
The one that most were curious to see the box office performance for is Aquaman, which fit right in line with projections as it had a $67 million debut that brings it to $72 million with the Amazon Prime showings from the weekend before. It’s expected to hit over $100 million for the five-day though with lots of people heading out over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It’s doing well with an “A-” CinemaScore so far and playing to slightly more male viewers and 58% over twenty-five. The film also did another $91 million overseas to bring its international take to $410 million and a worldwide of $482.8 million, which has it doing really well. China alone is responsible for $232 million.
New this week was also Mary Poppins Returns, which had a Wednesday debut. The film did $22 million this weekend with $31 million overall since Wednesday. It’s about what was expected and it’s tracking well in a different area with an “A-” CinemaScore while trending 59% female and 61% over the age of twenty-five, which could give it some legs. It also opened in limited form overseas with 17 markets to bring in $20 million so far.
Also curious to see was Bumblebee, as a kind of soft reboot of the Transformers franchise. It’s pretty hitting expectations with a $21 million debut and also nabbed an “A-” CinemaScore. The film has a $135 million budget, which feels like a lot, but Transformers: The Last Knight ran with a $217 million budget so this is scaled back a lot. It opened in 38 markets overseas where it added another $31 million and has a lot of big markets still coming up, including China on January 4th.
We’re very glad to see that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse landed in fourth with all of this competition where it brought in $16.7 million and a 53% drop, which is less than these things usually drop but more than expected. There is, however, a lot of competition.
You have to go down to the seventh place to find another new film out with Second Act from STX which did $6.5 million on its $16 million budget as it attempts some romcom material for the holiday audience. And last but not least, Welcome to Marwen debuted in ninth place with a $2.35 million debut in the 1,900 locations its playing in. With a “B-” CinemaScore, chances for expansion may be weak and it certainly won’t have legs to it.
Christmas Day is going to make things even busier with two more films debuting then. Sony is bringing out Holmes and Watson on 2,700 screens whil Annapura is launching Vice on just under 2,400 screens.