WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE FOR WEEK ENDING DECEMBER 8, 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–$211m / $600m worldwide total
3. Pushpa 2: The Rule–$93m worldwide debut
4. Gladiator II–$48m / $368m ww
5. Her Story aka Hao Dong Xi--$21m / $75m ww
6. Red One–$15m / $164m ww
7. Paddington in Peru–$7m / $40m ww
8. Burning Star aka Gu Xing Ji Hua–$7m ww debut
9. Venom: The Last Dance–$5m / $473m ww
10. The Firefighters–$5m ww debut
11. Interstellar–$4m / $738m ww
12. Cesium Fallout–$4m / $40m ww
13. Conclave–$4m / $39m ww
14. Good Luck–$4m / $7m ww
15. Solo Leveling: Reawakening–$4m ww debut
16. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever–$3m / $35m ww
17. For King and Country: A Drummer Boy Christmas Live–$2.6m ww debut
18. Heretic–$2m / $41m ww
19. To Gather Around aka Sheng Quan Zai Wo aka Brave New World–$2m / $28m ww
20. The Last Dance–$2m / $18m ww
21. Maharaja–$2m / $18m ww
22. The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim–$2m ww debut (8.9% of worldwide)
23. Y2K–$2m ww debut
24. The Substance–$1m / $56m ww
25. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3–$1m / $50m ww
26. Amaran–$1m / $39m ww
27. Crayon Shin-Chan: Our Dinosaur Diary–$1m / $34m ww
28. Anora–$1m / $25m ww
29. Hello, Love, Again–$1m / $23m ww
30. The Young Couple Apartment–$1m / $17m ww
31. Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.–$1m / $11m ww
32. I'm Still Here–$1m / $9m ww
33. Small Things Like These–$1m / $7m ww
34. Hidden Face–$1m / $6m ww
35. Flow–$1m / $ 4m ww
36. Nie Xaiogian–$1m ww debut
37. Werewolves–$1m ww debut
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
Wow, again. Three big movies that proved popular over Thanksgiving continue to be popular the week after Thanksgiving. If they can all remain popular for another month, Hollywood will be happy. I saw Wicked catching up with Moana on some weekdays, but that seems illusory now. It's more a factor of animated films having bigger weekends.
Others seem stoked about the year and highly confident wwe'll get to $8.3b in North America. I look at Kraven the Hunter and Mufasa: The Lion King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and am far less confident. We can already see that The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim is highly unlikely to prove a phenomenon and might well be an out and out flop. (Though I don't see any reported budget for it, surely $80mb is a reasonable base. It might have been much more expensive but surely it didn't cost less.)
Still, it's great to see three films packing 'em in. Gladiator II is set to become one of those movies that most see as a hit, even though it's unlikely to come within a mile of tripling its reported $250mb. It'll leg out to $500mb and a film with appeal to older folk can run and run. But will they be patient and let it play out? Nope, I'm sure they'll want it streaming by Christmas and thus screw over any chance for repeat biz, older folks "discovering" it and a boost from Oscar nominations announced Jan 17, 2025. Gladiator II is precisely the sort of film a studio shouldn't rush onto digital. It can play all over the world; it has strong Oscar hopes, it appeals to older people, it plays much better on the big screen and is the sort of film people want to see on a big screen. I'd be angling for a second IMAX run, if I were them. (Assuming such a thing is possible.)
Audiences are clearly happy spend the money and go to the movies. Two things stand in the way of this. One, a robust release schedule including all sorts of movies with all sorts of budgets. Two, the ever-shrinking window. I applaud flexibility from everyone involved. If a movie flops, exhibitors shouldn't stand in the way of a movie jumping right to digital (rental, sales, streaming. But when a movie can play, studios should not yank it out of a predetermined belief that they need to double down on their marketing cost by pushing even hits out of theaters before their time. I'm pretty sure folks would remember Gladiator II come the weekend of March 2, when the Oscars are held. That's when I would send it to digital.
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. 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.
3. 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.
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. Her Story aka Hao Dong Xi --Chinese drama, literally translated as "Nice One." Single mom moves in with another single gal; adventures ensue. I don't like calling film's hits without some reporting on its budget. But I can't imagine this type of film costing even $20m, so it's a hit!
6. Red One–Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans action/Xmas comedy. A budget reportedly up to $250mb. It's a theatrical failure, but that failure would have been just as clear if it had gone straight to streaming. Now at least it is (almost) paying for a worldwide marketing blitz and that can only help. Remember how people rented crap movies at Blockbuster simply because they'd "heard" of it during the theatrical run? Same idea.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. The Firefighters–Korean drama with hot young newbie joining firefighter squad, only to butt heads with a legendary veteran.
12. Cesium Fallout–Hong Kong disaster flick starring Andy Lau. A radioactive leak threatens the island.
13. 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.
14. Good Luck–Indian/Hindi comedy in which 75 year old grandmother might be pregnant!
15. Solo Leveling: Reawakening–this Korean animated film began as a fantasy "web novel," sort of the easiest and cheapest way to launch an idea and see if it might be popular and translate into more profitable media. Yes, indeed, in this case! It became a webtoon, a video game, an anime series and next up a live action adaptation. This film is a compilation of events from the first season of the anime series, plus episodes 1 and 2 from season two. So it's a glorified launch of TV episodes, a la The Chosen. I'm assuming anything they make is gravy since it cost nothing. Hence my calling it a hit from day one.
16. 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.
17. 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.
19. To Gather Around aka Sheng Quan Zai Wo aka Brave New World–Chinese drama about workplace politics. The Chinese title is literally translated as "Guaranteed Victory." In English, it's also referred to as "Brave New World."
20. The Last Dance–this Hong Kong film is about a man who switches from wedding planner to a funeral home, so he can better understand death and dying. A critical and commercial smash, it's been praised as lovely in the Western press and at $16m as of Dec 7 (or HK$122m), making it the highest grossing Hong Kong film of all time. Remake alert!!! Now it's opened in China to $2m. Not sure why it hasn't been on the radar before since it made its money pretty fast. They must not have been reporting to Comscore or others; too busy enjoying a homegrown hit.
21. Maharaja–Indian/Tamil action film; grossed $13m before opening in China.
22. The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim–no budget reported for this animated prequel to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings movies. But surely $80mb is a very reasonable guess. 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. It's opened in about 9% of the world, so this has a long way to go. But given its reception in Spain, Brazil and Mexico and my reaction to the trailer when I'm the targeted fanbase, this looks like a disappointment.
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.
24. The Substance–$18mb reported for the Demi Moore body horror comeback. So I guess despite
all the back and forth on its grosses, this really is a winner now.
25. 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.
27. Crayon Shin-Chan: Our Dinosaur Diary–A Japanese animated movie that opened there in August and then Hong Kong and Vietnam where it grossed at least $20m and yet it NEVER appeared on my radar! Japan is a market like India where indies don't bother to report grosses to international bodies or companies like Comscore. It's only because the film opened in China and that distributor reported the grosses that we're finding out about it. No idea on the budget, but this isn't Disney or even Miyazaki. So a very good gross, though I'm loathe to call movies hits when I don't have any budget to consider. ($22m before opening in China.)
28. 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.
29. Hello, Love, Again–Filipino sequel to Hello, Love, Goodbye from 2019. Debuting w more than $2m at the North American box office, it's notable as the rare Filipino to even get a commercial release in the US. The original grossed $17m worldwide, at the time making it the highest grossing Filipino film of all time. The sequel did not gross $15m this week, but we're playing catchup on its Filipino grosses and more from other countries. The sequel has now made $23m worldwide and still going strong.
30. 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.
31. 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.
32. 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.
33. 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.
35. 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.
36. Nie Xaiogian–A Chinese animated film based on a classic ghost story taken from Strange Tales From A Chinese Studio by Pu Songling. Unless I'm much mistaken, he collected fairy tales/weird stories for decades, so think of his collection as the Grimm Fairy Tales of the Qing Dynasty/17th Century. The story has been adapted many, many times and this 3-D animated film has not captured the fancy of audiences or critics. Wasn't that interesting? This is why you read me!
37. Werewolves–very low budget horror film about everyone turning into werewolves when a super moon appears. The most recent one took place December 4. Shouldn't this have been released the weekend before a super moon? Not right after? The next one is December 23rd. Just saying.
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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