Weekend Estimates: Moana Stands Tall as Awards Season Hots Up
December 4, 2016
The top of the box office chart remains a tale of two movies this weekend, with Moana maintaining an impressive lead over Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but both movies doing very nicely heading into the Christmas season. Moana tops the chart again this weekend with $28.4 million, for a total of $119.9 million at the end of the weekend. By way of comparison, Frozen had earned $134.3 million at this point in its run, but fell a slightly larger 53% from Thanksgiving, compared to Moana’s 50% decline. The next few weeks should be very lucrative for the animated adventure, which is likely to sail past $300 million at the domestic box office.
Internationally, Moana is still getting out the gate, but has amassed a healthy $57.5 million from the markets it has opened in so far, with number 1 openings in France, Russia, Mexico and Spain this weekend. It opened second in the United Kingdom, behind Fantastic Beasts. Doctor Strange continues to pile up cash around the world, and completes the weekend with $419.6 million internationally, $215.3 million domestically, and $634.9 million globally, which takes it past Iron Man 2 worldwide. Disney now has $2.491 billion at the domestic box office this year, which is a new industry record, overtaking Universal’s $2.442 billion last year.
For Fantastic Beasts, this is a another very solid weekend, with the film down 59% from Thanksgiving to $18.5 million domestically, for a total of $183.5 million. It too should play strongly through the holidays, although it might find it a little harder to hold on to theaters. It added another $60.4 million overseas this weekend for a $424.4 million international total and $607.9 million worldwide. That moves it into the top 10 worldwide in 2016.
Finding a place in the market is hard for lower profile films right now, and both wide-ish openers are struggling. Incarnate will earn about $2.7 million from 1,737 theaters for ninth place, and a theater average of $1,531. Believe is headed for around $600,000 from 639 locations, for an average below $1,000.
Awards hopefuls are faring much better. Jackie is chief among them this weekend, with Fox Searchlight predicting a $275,000 opening from just five theaters, and an average of $55,000. Also in the $10,000-average club this weekend are Manchester-by-the-Sea, which will bring in about $2.4 million from just 156 theaters and moves up to 11th place on the chart; Lion, with $120,000 or so from seven theaters; Miss Sloane, with $44,000 from four movie houses; and Things to Come, with $33,000 from three.
Also of note, Arrival moves up to third on the overall chart this weekend with $7.3 million in its fourth weekend, and a decline of just 36% from Thanksgivining—the smallest drop for any film in the top ten (in part thanks to adding another 473 theaters this weekend). Its putting together the kind of run that could earn it some awards attention.
- Incarnate comparison chart
Disclosure: Manchester-by-the-Sea and Jackie were produced by clients of our research and analytical services.
Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com
- Moana comparison chart
- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them comparison chart
- Arrival comparison chart
- Allied comparison chart
- Doctor Strange comparison chart
- Marvel Cinematic Universe at the box office
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Moana, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Lion, Doctor Strange, Manchester by the Sea, Arrival, Incarnate, L'avenir, Miss Sloane, Jackie, Believe, Marvel Cinematic Universe