Box Office Round-Up ~ 11/28/22

Thanksgiving weekend usually sees lot of travel, but very few people seemed to be traveling to movie theaters. Only one movie in the top five managed to clear $20 million, and the entire box office combined failed to clear $100 million over the three-day weekend.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever retained the top spot with $45.9 million in its third weekend. It’s now the sixth highest grossing movie of the year and will likely reach the top three in December, alongside Top Gun: Maverick and (most probably) the upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water.

Disney also took the number-two spot on the list, but they’re probably not celebrating as Strange World, the latest from Walt Disney Animation Studios, flopped hard in its debut weekend with just $11.9 million. Excluding mid-pandemic titles, it’s the worst debut for the animation studio in over a decade. Even if the sci-fi adventure finds new legs in its subsequent weekends, it’ll be next to impossible to avoid bomb status.

In third place, Daniel Craig returned as master detective Benoit Blanc, in theaters for one week only in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery from writer/director Rian Johnson. The murder mystery sequel is only on the big screen until Wednesday (leading up to its Netflix premiere in late December), but it still grossed $9.2 million. This limited release model may be the shape of things to come for streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, etc., allowing their original movies to get some box office heat before debuting online.

Rounding out the top five were Korean War actioner Devotion, which debuted with a disappointing $5.9 million, while horror-thriller The Menu took $5.2 million in its sophomore weekend.

1. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($45.9 MM)
Director: Ryan Coogler (WME)
Writers: Ryan Coogler (WME), Joe Robert Cole (Circle of Confusion)
Cast: Letitia Wright (3.16)
         Lupita Nyong’o (CAA)
         Danai Gurira (UTA)

2. Strange World ($11.9 MM)
Director: Don Hall, Qui Nguyen (Paradigm)
Writers: Qui Nguyen (Paradigm)
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal (WME)
         Dennis Quaid (UTA)
         Jaboukie Young-White (WME)

3. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery ($9.2 MM)
Director: Rian Johnson (CAA)
Writers: Rian Johnson (CAA)
Cast: Daniel Craig (CAA)
         Edward Norton (UTA)
         Janelle Monáe (WME)

4. Devotion ($5.9 MM)
Director: J.D. Dillard (CAA)
Writers: Jake Crane (CAA), Jonathan Stewart
Cast: Jonathan Majors (WME)
         Glen Powell (CAA)
         Christina Jackson (Paradigm)

5. The Menu ($5.2 MM)
Director: Mark Mylod (WME)
Writers: Seth Reiss (UTA), Will Tracy (WME)
Cast: Ralph Fiennes (42)
         Anya Taylor-Joy (CAA)
         Nicholas Hoult (UTA)

Source: Box Office Mojo, The Numbers