WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE FOR WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 3, 2024
A film's gross for the last seven days, followed by its total worldwide gross.
1. Venom: The Last Dance–$142m / $317m worldwide total
2. The Wild Robot–$37m / $269m ww
3. Smile 2–$26m / $110m ww
4. Terrifier 3–$22m / $75m ww
5. Singham Again–$22m worldwide debut
6. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3–$20 ww debut
7. Amaran–$15m ww debut
8. The Unseen Sister–$13m / $23m ww
9. Cesium Fallout–$13m ww debut
10. L'amour Ouf aka Beating Hearts–$11m / $27m
11. We Live In Time–$10m / $22m ww
12. Conclave–$8m / $15m ww
13. Juror No. 2–$5m ww debut
14. Here–$5m ww debut
15. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire–$4m / $901m ww
16. Transformers One–$4m / $128m ww
17. The Substance–$4m / $43m ww
18. Anora–$4m / $6m ww
19. The Young Couple Apartment–$3.5m ww debut
20. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice–$3m / $445m ww
21. The Apprentice -- $3m / $10 ww
22. The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death–$2m / $165m
23. Look Back–$2m / $6m ww
24. Amazon Bullseye–$2m ww debut
25. I Am The Secret In Your Heart–$2m ww debut
26. Deadpool & Wolverine–$1m / $1.338b ww
27. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban–$1m / $813m ww
28. It Ends With Us–$1m / $348m ww
29. Joker: Folie à Deux–$1m / $202m ww
30. High Forces–$1m / $42m ww
31. Panda Plan aka Project Panda–$1m / $42m ww
32. The Forge–$1m / $39m ww
33. Love in the Big City -- $1m / $6m ww
34. A Normal Family–$1m / $4m ww
35. Absolution–$1m ww debut
36. Leon–$1m ww
Bold: movies that have or likely will triple their reported budgets. That's my standard for a movie being a box office hit from theatrical alone. Many films will be profitable for a studio even if they don't triple their reported budget, but it's a good marker to indicate a big hit.
ANALYSIS
Venom: The Last Dance is enjoying a strong run at the worldwide box office, thanks to no competition in North America and a very healthy run in China. That's exactly how Hollywood should see the fickle, sometimes impenetrable market of China. It's not the goal and can't be catered too, since you are never guaranteed a release, much less easy access to any profits. So keep it in mind and if the movie plays there, great! Just don't depend on it.
The Wild Robot is showing great legs, as expected. It is absurd for DreamWorks to be marketing it online when they should let this play and play. It actually grew at the North American box office this week. Horror flicks like Smile 2 and Terrifier 3 are printing money, with Hugh Grant in Heretic coming up next. But in 2025, they will finally hit maximum horror with too many titles scheduled to come out.
In India, the Diwali holiday was an excuse for three big films to come out: Singham Again, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 and Amaran all hit theaters as broad appeal flicks (the first an action flick, the second a supernatural comedy, the third another action flick). They'll each need to show good legs to be considered hits, because all films represent pretty big budgets. But at least Bollywood (the home of the first two Hindi language films and the sleepiest of India's powerhouse film hubs) is showing signs of life. Did they spend too much money to do it? We'll probably know by next week.
In France and Belgium, L'Amour Ouf, one of the worst reviewed films in competition at Cannes, is doing well. It made $11m last week and another $11m this week, which is great. One problem: the budget is a reported $39mb. (Why, I have no idea. It's about a decades-long romance between wrong side of the track teenagers.)
In North America, Conclave had a solid hold, though I still don't see it as Oscar bait. But the new Robert Zemeckis film Here reuniting Tom Hanks and Robin Wright from Forrest Gump was D.O.A., pleasing neither critics nor audiences. (The graphic novel it's based on is terrific, though.) Still, Zemeckis is always pushing technology and anyone who made Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the Beatlemania delight I Wanna Hold Your Hand can rest easy.
Meanwhile, Clint Eastwood's new directorial effort slunk into theaters (they didn't even report grosses). Netflix is taking it to streaming but promised an Oscar qualifying run. The joke is on them since it's one of his better reviewed movies and might easily have minted some money for the streamer. And pay attention to We Live In Time. It's a weepie and showing good traction.
Piece by Piece opened on October 11 and quickly ran out of steam. Eighteen days later it was available premium online. I'd be fine with it available for basic rental one month after it was released. It's down to 500 screens and grossing about $350,000. Can't everyone agree when exhibitors are done showing a movie and it's falling fast that studios can and should capitalize on the marketing to make it available online? And when a movie like The Wild Robot is showing legs, they should not push it online. Is that so hard?
NOTE: More shenanigans around The Substance? Two weeks ago, the worldwide total was $42m. Last week, suddenly folks are saying $42m? Oh, we meant $39m. This week? It's back to $43m. Go figure.
Here's a reminder about the annual box office. Studios are releasing about 25% fewer movies in 2024 than they did during the 2016-2019 pre-COVID era. That means we can reasonably expect the annual North American box office to reach about 25% less than that era's average box office. So look for about $8.3b for the year and call that a return to business as usual. Currently, North American box office is at $6.3b, with Thanksgiving and Christmas to go. Pump up the releases of all types of movies in 2025 and we have every reason to expect box office back in $10b-$11b territory.
NOTES
mb= a film's budget in millions of US dollars
1. Venom: The Last Dance–$120m reported budget, so even if it collapses quickly, this one will be a winner. With Venom 1 hitting $850m and Venom 2 at just $500m, this is an old school franchise where each new entry seeing less and less interest. They were right to call it a day after #3, clearly.
2. The Wild Robot–$80mb. Ha! Based on prior films from DreamWorks Animation I guessed this film's budget was around $80mb. And Wikipedia now says its roughly $78mb. I rounded up $2m so I could be right on the dot (plus, the math is easier when tripling).
3. Smile 2–a $28mb, which is a reasonable jump over the $17mb of the original Smile. That film grossed $217m worldwide. With this one grossing well over the film's budget on opening weekend, it's a clear box office winner. I would LOVE someone to develop a quick and easy guide to how wide a film opens worldwide. A simple pie chart showing what percentage of the worldwide market a movie has already opened in would be awesome. Smile 2 grossed $23m from North America alone. That's about, what, 20% of the worldwide market? With China another 17%? 15%? (Even if a movie never opens there or expects to make much less or nothing in that market.) Smile 2 opened in 36 countries. But Kuwait, the Netherlands and Ukraine (!) probably don't add up to 1% of the worldwide market. Is this opening 40% of the worldwide total? 60%? I don't know but it would be very useful to measure this based on the previous year's worldwide box office and the contributions of each market. Anyway, Smile 2 will certainly hit $84m worldwide even if it collapses hard and is a hit.
4. Terrifier 3 -- $23m ww debut on a $2mb! Success, thy name is cheap horror films.
5. Singham Again–Indian/Hindi action film w a $42mb. Fifth in Cop Universe franchise. Last film made $32m. This budget is five times bigger than Singham Return's $8mb.
6. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3–Indian/Hindi supernatural comedy about a fake ghostbuster. The budget is $18mb. Part 2 made $32m ww total so this needs to do almost twice as much to be a hit from box office alone.
7. Amaran–Indian/Tamil action film. The budget is anything from $15mb to $24mb which is a huge range but I'll err on the side of caution. One of three big films that opened during Diwali festival.
9. Cesium Fallout–Hong Kong disaster flick starring Andy Lau. A radioactive leak threatens the island.
10. L'Amour Ouf–a reported $39mb. Tranlsates as literally "Love, Phew" but translated as Beating Hearts. A Belgian drama about teen lovers torn apart by gang violence. In competition at Cannes, but widely panned as the worst of the bunch. But in France and Belgium, it had a sensational hold, grossing $11m two weeks in a row so maybe this will pay off.
15. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire–the reissue in China for all the films brought in $4 on the opening week for this entry...and that neatly put it over $900m ww. Here are the rest of the films in the franchise and where they stand before their reissue: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix now at $942m; Half Blood Prince at $934m; Deathly Hallows I at $977m; Deathly Hallows II at $1.342b
16. Transformers One–a reported $75mb per the trades, though Animation Magazine has a nice feature with the director and producer and offers up $147m for the budget, which is interestingly specific. So, there's that.
17. The Substance–$18mb reported for the Demi Moore body horror comeback.
19. The Young Couple Apartment–Chinese film, perhaps a remake of 1987 Chinese film about lives of six young couples all living in same apartment building.
20. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice–a reported $100mb and good audience response means this is a winner right off the bat. Hardly a slam dunk, by the way. The original came out almost 35 years ago and only grossed $78m worldwide. So the sequel cost more than the entire first film's worldwide gross! That's not a recipe for success, normally. But the original only cost $15mb to make and everyone knew it enjoyed a long afterlife, thanks to tv reruns, Halloween, the Broadway musical and so on. Still, gamble it was and the gamble paid off.
21. The Apprentice -- with a $16mb, you can spin this either way politically. Liberals can say people didn't want to see the film because they're sick and tired of Trump. So he'll lose. Right wingers can say people didn't want to see a film that criticized in any way their beloved ruler. So he'll win. Both side-ism!
22. The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death–a sequel to China's 2023's The Volunteers: To The War, which launched this trilogy about China's involvement in the Korean War (or "police action," if you accept the Orwellian description of the US government). The first film was a reported $85mb, so presumably the sequel is the same? Director Chen Kaige already made two films about just one battle in the Korean War: The Battle at Lake Changjin I and II. They were shot back-to-back and cost a reported $200mb. Together they grossed a massive $1.5 billion worldwide. No wonder they greenlit a three-quel! This time, they spent at least 13 months filming, so surely that means they shot the entire trilogy in one fell swoop. But I bet the budget has been cut in thirds, for reporting purposes so it doesn't seem so big. The total is $240m or so for three films, I believe, which seems reasonable compared to $200mb for two films that proved such massive hits. But who the heck knows? I'm making a lot of guesses here. According to my Showbiz Sandbox notes from last year, The Volunteers: To The War topped out at about $120m worldwide. Needless to say, that's a stunning drop from the $900m the first in the Lake duology grossed. This one is almost out of steam at $165m. A big gamble that did not pay off, since they'll be lucky to double the budget at the box office.
23. Look Back–Chinese animated film about two girls who bond over their love of manga and work on one together.
24. Amazon Bullseye–Korean sports comedy w a one-time archery medalist recruiting Amazon people w amazing archery skills and brings them back to Korea. Hilarity ensues.
30. High Forces–it's Die Hard in a plane! Sort of. (Remember when every action film was Die Hard in...? Those were the days.) In this Hong Kong action film Andy Lau stars as a cop who accidentally blinded his daughter when stopping a jewel robbery. His marriage ends and he quits the force to work as a security expert. Years later, Lau boards the ultra-luxury Airbus A380, only to see his wife and daughter on board Hijackers take off the plane and start killing off passengers in economy (Man, you really should have upgraded.) Lau takes them on, with his blind daughter somehow secretly providing him intel to defeat the baddies. If it's set during Christmas time, I'll say Yipee-kiyay! The film is set for a North American release.
31. Panda Plan aka Project Panda–a new Jackie Chan comedy in which he rescues a (CGI-generated) panda. Hilarity and heartwarming moments ensue in this family oriented action comedy. The English language title is officially Panda Plan. But the original Chinese title translates literally as Project Panda. Somebody probably made good money advising that unnecessary title change.
32. The Forge–this faith-based film did better in its second week? Success! Reported $5mb.
THE CHART AND HOW IT IS COMPILED
This column is a week by week tracking of box office around the world. It is compiled by pulling from every possible source: ComScore, Box Office Mojo, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, charts for countries like China and India and South Korea, individual stories in trade or general interest newspapers, Wikipedia and anyone else discussing box office.
ComScore Weekly Global Box Office Chart
The weekly charts contain the total gross for every movie in theaters around the world during the last seven days. If a movie opens on a Thursday, we include all the box office from Thursday through Sunday. If it opens on a Tuesday night, we cover all six days. If it opens on a Sunday (as some movies do in India or wherever, depending on holidays), then we include the box office for that one day. If a movie was released before the current week, we include the box office for all seven days. Why ignore the box office from Monday through Thursday, as most charts do when tallying the latest weekend and focusing on new releases?
How do we arrive at this number? We take the total worldwide box office we have for a movie, subtract from it the previous week's total worldwide box office...and that's how much it made during the past seven days. Naturally, territories and movies sometimes fall through the cracks but we are as up to date as we can be, given our dependence on other outlets for the basic info.
First, I list box office on every film we can from around the world. Any movie grossing at least US $1 million will be on here if we get info on it. Then I give some thoughts on the box office overall and individual films. That's followed by notes where I give info on every movie, with a focus on films not from Hollywood. So Despicable Me 4 you know. But a small Korean comedy or French drama? That I'll identify for you as best I can.
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