WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE FOR WEEK ENDING DECEMBER 15, 2024
A film's gross for the last seven days, followed by its total worldwide gross. I begin with data from
Comscore and then pull from every other source available.
1. Moana 2–$117m / $717m worldwide total
2. Pushpa 2: The Rule–$74m / $167m ww
3. Wicked–$69m / $525m ww
4. Gladiator II–$31m / $399m ww
5. Kraven The Hunter–$26m ww debut
6. Her Story aka Hao Dong Xi--$13m / $88m ww
7. The Last Dance–$12m / $30m ww
8. Red One–$11m / $175m ww
9. Interstellar–$8m / $746m ww
10. The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim–$8m / $10m ww
11. The Prosecutor–$8m ww debut
12. The Firefighters–$7m / $12m ww
13. Interstella5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem–$7m ww debut
14. Conclave–$6m / $45m ww
15. Burning Star aka Gu Xing Ji Hua–$6m / $13m ww
16. Cells at Work! (2024)–$6m ww debut
17. Paddington in Peru–$5m / $45m ww
18. I Am What I Am 2–$5m ww debut
19. Anora–$4m / $29m ww
20. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever–$2m / $37m ww
21. Venom: The Last Dance–$3m / $476m ww
22. Heretic–$2m / $43m ww
23. Y2K–$2m / $4m ww
24. Queer–$2m ww
25. The Substance–$1m / $57m ww
26. Cesium Fallout–$1m / $41m ww
27. Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.–$1m / $12m ww
28. I'm Still Here–$1m / $10m ww
29. Good Luck–$1m / $8m ww
30. Small Things Like These–$1m / $8m ww
31. Flow–$1m / $ 5m ww
32. Solo Leveling: Reawakening–$1m / $5m ww
33. For King and Country: A Drummer Boy Christmas Live–$1m / $3.6m 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
As I feared, Kraven The Hunter and The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim both failed to ignite at the box office. The December box office looked weak and so it proved. Happily, Moana 2 and Wicked (and to a lesser degree, Gladiator 2) proved big hits, with smaller films like Conclave and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever chipping in some steady business. You really do need all sorts of movies at all budget levels for a healthy box office and that's the only ingredient lacking from 2024: not enough movies (in fact, 25% fewer wide releases than was typical from 2016-2019) and certainly not enough of a mix.
Worldwide, it's great to see the huge success of both China's Her Story and India's Telugu hit Pushpa 2. Now if someone can explain to me why the film Pushpa 2 immediately exploded and has already tripled and will easily quadruple the originals box office–despite similar mixed reviews–I'd be beholden. Why did they give it a budget bigger than the original's entire gross? Why has it proven so much more popular? Was it a massive hit on streaming or as a rental in homes? Heck, I don't even know how well developed India's streaming ecosystem is, actually. I know Hollywood competes but at a much smaller level than in the US. Do most folks watch hits like Pushpa 1 as a rental, on DVD, via streaming, via cable? Enquiring minds want to know.
As an aside, let me share an anecdote. I was doing some Amazon query and spoke via text chat to a live human being. Given their name, at the end of their help I told them I was in London and asked where they were at. India, she responded. Have you seen Pushpa 2 yet, I asked? She was astonished and said no and how the heck did I know about it. Had I seen Pushpa 1? We chatted about it and she was even more blown away when I told her the new movie had opened in the Top 10 in the US (North America really) and was very pleased and proud. I told her further how this happens quite often now and that in Birmingham, AL there's a strong Indian community and the local multiplex (an AMC, but I assumed she wouldn't have heard of it) showed one or two or even three films from India every week. Jaw dropped. And when I mentioned they were Hindi and Telugu and Tamil and so on, I won a fan for life. I humble brag about this because a lot of times Indian studios don't bother to report their grosses to ComScore. They should! It's free advertising. And every moviegoer in India should know about the notable success Indian films have at the North American box office. More free advertising!
Back to our regular program.
Now we have to hope Sonic The Hedgehog 3 and Mufasa: The Lion King will overperform, while Moana 2 and Wicked pick up steam again next week so we can end the year strong and hit $8.3b in North America. That's exactly where we should end up, given the dramatic lack of wide releases, due to the strikes and lockdown. If 2025, brings us a normal level of wide releases and a strong mix of every genre and budget size, we have every reason to expect box office to hit $10b to $11b again. No waiting needed. Hence my weekly reminder below.
P.S. Don't get hung up on the "ranking" of a movie. being #1 or #4 doesn't really matter. Every movie might well be at a different stage in its campaign. The numbering is just to help you read the list easily and check for its notes if you're not sure what the movie is about or where it's from.
NOTE: 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 $7.6b, with 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; ww = worldwide
1. Moana 2–Is the budget lower since it was intended for tv, at first? Or higher because they had to rethink everything? Disney says it cost $150mb, just like the original. You can bet Dwayne Johnson gets more than his share of coconuts, but that won't matter with a hit like this.
2. Pushpa 2: The Rule–$60mb. The original Indian/Telugu film cost half as much and only grossed $46m. So the sequel cost more than the original movie's gross. But it doubled the original's entire gross in its first week. Originally, a chunk of the two films were shot at the same time, but they did significant reshoots, so just 10% came from the first go-round. Yes, it was the highest grossing Indian movie of 2021; yes it's one of the highest grossing Telugu films of all time. But even the lowest estimate of the original's budget is $23mb, so it wasn't a huge hit to begin with. I am puzzled. Are the economics different for Indian films? I wouldn't be surprised if the calculations were different. There are no reports of the first film being a particular hit on streaming or on demand etc, which might justify all this. I think it's another example of Indian films committing to a sequel before there's any demand. Indeed, this film was cut into two parts before the first release. A number of other films seem to be two-parters, which is a very rare thing in Hollywood but less so in India. Is it a good idea? I don't think so. And having said all that, it's off to an excellent start. Why? It's no better reviewed than the first. Maybe they got lucky but Indian studios should rethink all these two and three-parters.
3. Wicked–$150mb for each part, so $300mb total plus beaucoup marketing. It's a big movie! Still has at least 12% of the worldwide market to open in, including Japan, Germany and Russia.
4. Gladiator II–$250mb for Ridley Scott sword and sandals epic. It needs $750m worldwide for me to call it a hit from theatrical alone but $600m would be just fine. It's got swords. It's got sandals. Does it have legs?
5. Kraven The Hunter–$120mb.
10. The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim–per Screendollar, the budget is $30mb for this animated prequel to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings movies. Even at that price, it almost certainly won't be a theatrical hit. Taken solely from minor footnotes in the novels, it's a gamble but a smart one. An animated film won't be compared to Peter Jackson's masterpiece. (See: the TV series.) And it's not retelling stories we've already heard. (See: superhero movies that go back to the well by redoing an origin story for Superman, Spiderman, et al.) Unfortunately, you still have to be good. The trailer I saw disappointed and audiences are not responding. A pity.
12. The Firefighters–Korean drama with hot young newbie joining firefighter squad, only to butt heads with a legendary veteran.
13. Interstella5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem–maybe $4mb. An animated made in 2003 to tie-in to the duo Daft Punk's second album Discovery. It seems to have premiered at Cannes (how did I miss it?) and after a nominal theatrical run right onto BluRay. Now it's been sorta remastered and released worldwide to–I think–nearly $7m. (I couldn't find any figures for the first run 21 years ago.) This wordless animated French film tied to an album that came out two decades ago which most of us have never heard somehow opened in the Top Ten in North America. Which goes to demonstrate how thin the competition is for movies right now. (I am not commenting on the quality of this film I haven't seen, which might be brilliant!)
14. Conclave–a reported $20mb for this Vatican thriller means they're likely to have a hit when all is said and done. It's at $39m and still going strong, with a boost from potential Oscar noms, assuming they don't rush it to streaming.
15. Burning Star aka Gu Xing Ji Hua (aka Ancient Star Project)–Chinese drama about hot students who attempt a top secret, doomed-to-fail suicide mission to rescue and evacuate others.
16. Cells at Work! (2024)–No budget reported. You think Hollywood overdoes the remakes and brand extensions? Ha! Japan is relentless in taking ideas and repurposing them in every way possible. Consider the Japanese manga series Cells at Work!, a serialized story that tells the story of a red blood cell just looking to do her job in the body. It's an anthropomorphized story with a cute girl (the red blood cell) bumping into this hot dude every once in a while (he's a white blood cell) and generally having adventures and romance and the like. It was serialized in a monthly manga magazine and then, oh boy. So far it's spun off into 13 different mangas like Cells at Work!: Bacteria and Cells at Work!: Muscle and then wo anime series, a stage show, a mobile app, an anime film and now a live action film and presumably lots of merchandise. I mean, seriously, Hollywood is practically reserved in comparison.
17. Paddington in Peru–$50mb? I'm just guessing. (That's sort of midpoint between the original and Paddington 2.) Sadly, three times is not the charm artistically for this once-perfect franchise.
18. I Am What I Am 2–Chinese animated film is a sequel to a 2021 animated action comedy. This time, a newcomer to Shanghai agrees to fight in a boxing/martial arts tournament to raise money for his ailing dad. It's a spiritual sequel to the first film, which was critically praised but only grossed $40m ww. In that film, a kid competes in a lion dancing competition while his ailing dad is in a coma.
19. Anora–no budget for Sean Baker's latest. But since the most he ever got before is $2mb, I'm assuming this isn't that much. It's opened pretty wide already, so I guess a real platform throughout awards season won't happen? A shame not to let this play into March 2025 where Conan O'Brien can give Anora her flowers. Still, it's already more than doubling The Florida Project, which made $11m off a $1mb.
20. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever–$10mb for this holiday faith-based film based on the gentle 1972 novel. It's a more religiousy A Christmas Story.
21. Venom: The Last Dance–$120m reported budget. 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. And yet...it's just matching the $500m of #2. They might be tempted to go for four, but they shouldn't.
22. Heretic–reported $10mb horror flick starring Hugh Grant as a gent more than willing to invite two Mormons into his home to debate religious beliefs.
23. Y2K–teen sci-fi horror comedy (a description that makes me like it already). Two kids decide to crach the biggest party of the year as Y2K threatens to upend everything. In this case, it does. (In real life, by the way, Y2K was indeed a very significant issue companies all over the world spent tons of money–hard to guess but easily $100m+–and time worldwide to fix before computers when klabooey. It was not a "nothing burger." Just saying. Anyway, this could be dumb fun.
26. Cesium Fallout–Hong Kong disaster flick starring Andy Lau. A radioactive leak threatens the island.
27. Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.–a modestly budgeted film about the anti-Nazi martyr which is denounced by his descendants and experts on the life of Bonhoeffer. They say the film distorts his life and teachings to promote Christian nationalism. While the Nazis accused and executed Bonhoeffer for involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler, he had already been imprisoned and there's no evidence linking him to it. Showing him wielding a gun in the poster is one of many reasons the family and others have lambasted the film.
28. I'm Still Here–A reported $1.5mb. Director Walter Salles drama about a Brazilian woman searching for her missing husband during the dictatorship of Brazil that lasted more than 20 years. Brazil's Oscar hopeful enjoyed acclaim and awards at Venice. One of the biggest Brazilian hits of all time in its home country.
29. Good Luck–Indian/Hindi comedy in which 75 year old grandmother might be pregnant!
30. Small Things Like These–low budget Cillian Murphy drama about worker faced with knowledge of nuns treating young women abusively. Backed by Ben Affleck/Matt Damon production company. Lovely to see this small film chugging along. Presumably, the budget was very low and all are just happy to see the film was made and being seen. But who owns the negative? That's the piece of the puzzle that's missing from the coverage I read about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's new production company.
31. Flow–A critically acclaimed Latvian animated film about a cat; no subtitles. It's been playing in Latvia and France and just now expanding in the US. Doing well via word of mouth, so I'm pretending it grossed $1m this week to acknowledge it going wider in the US. It's now grossed $4 worldwide.
33. For King and Country: A Drummer Boy Christmas Live–the Christian rock band offers a live holiday show. Will it play for the next few weeks? We shall see.
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 each 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.
What about when I blithely state a film has opened in TK% of the world? For example, I claim The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim opened in about 9% of the worldwide market. I long wanted to know how "wide" a movie has opened around the world. It's easy to know how wide a film opened in one country. In the US/Canada, a limited release might be two theaters or 20. A wide release used to mean 1000 theaters and now big movies easily open on 2000 or 3000 or even 4000 theaters. (We talk about theaters, not screens, since screen count can and does change daily or even hourly. A movie can play at one mulitplex and be on five screens or eight or one.) I really hated not knowing how many countries a movie had already opened in and how "big" those countries are in the worldwide market. So I got a list of the 20 top countries and how much of the worldwide box office they represented in 2019, the last typical year/ Those 20 countries accounted for 90% of the worldwide box office in 2019. For example, Australia was responsible for 2.13% of the $42.2 billion worldwide total in 2019. China was responsible for $22.04%. The 86 or so other countries outside the Top 20 represent well less than 1% and are equally weighted as representing just 0.116% of the total worldwide box office.
So, The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim opened in Spain (1.66%), Mexico (2.37%) and Brazil (also 1.66%) and 28 other countries (none major). The three big markets total 5.69% of the worldwide box office. (Roughly!) The other 28 countries (28 times 0.116%) account for 3.248%. So altogether the film has opened in 8.938% of the world, which I simplified as about 9%. This DOESN'T mean the film will make 90% more in other markets. A movie might open in China or Korea and do little or nothing anywhere else for various reason. Another movie might open in France and prove a worldwide smash. All this number is meant to indicate is how much of the world a movie has opened in already. If it's a big hit and might play elsewhere, it's good to know a film that's making headlines has only opened in 10% of the world.
If two big films like Moana 2 and Wicked are facing off, it's good to know if one of them still has big markets like Japan still to come. No, I haven't done all the math on those two yet. But Wicked still has Germany, South Korea and Japan ahead of it and they represent 12.3% of the worldwide box office; Moana 2 has already opened in them. I'm hoping to get a program that will do all this for me automatically. Stay tuned.
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