The Thanksgiving holidays are nearly over, and Hollywood gave audiences plenty of options getting out of the house, before that one crazy Uncle starts a vociferous defence of Donald Trump after one too many glasses of spiked eggnog.
Pixar‘s “Coco” won the weekend with $49 million from Friday and a total five-day haul from its Wednesday opening with $71 million. It’s a decent, but not exactly thrilling number for the animation studio. The three-day total is on the low end of Pixar launches, barely besting the $47 million haul of “Ratatouille” a decade ago. It’s a long, long way from the blockbuster figures of “Finding Dory,” “Toy Story 3,” and “Monsters University.” In fact, of the top five biggest openings in Pixar history, three belong to sequels — while you may lament the studio’s pivot away from original material, there’s a financial reason why that’s happening. Good reviews and the holiday season will keep “Coco” around, and it’ll likely wind up in the neighborhood of another Pixar movie from this year, “Cars 3,” which opening to similar numbers, and wound up earning $383 million worldwide.
After last weekend’s sub-$100 million opening, it was always going to be an uphill battle for “Justice League,” and the expensive superhero movie couldn’t cling to the top spot for a second straight week. However, the DC Films effort only dropped 56.6%, which is actually the second best, second weekend hold of the DCEU movies to date, coming behind “Wonder Woman” (obviously). Even better news for Warner Bros. is that “Justice League” is doing good business abroad, and now stands at $481 million worldwide. Remember, the film needs to hit $700-750 million to turn any kind of profit. However, there are still two more blockbuster free weeks ahead until “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” arrives and obliterates everything in its path.
At the arthouse, “Call Me By Your Name” earned the biggest per-screen-average of the year with $101,000 in four cinemas, for a total of $404,000. This is going to be a knockout hit for Sony Pictures Classics, especially as it gets boosted by awards season laurels in the weeks ahead. “Darkest Hour” also landed on four screens with a $44,000 PSA, and a total of $176,000.
1. “Coco” — $49 million
2. “Justice League”— $40.7 million ($171.5 mil.)
3. “Wonder” — $22.3 million ($69.4 mil.)
4. “Thor: Ragnarok” — $16.7 million ($277.4 mil.)
5. “Daddy’s Home 2” — $13.2 million ($72.6 mil.)
6. “Murder On The Orient Express” — $13 million ($74.2 mil.)
7. “The Star” — $6.8 million ($22 mil.)
8. “A Bad Moms Christmas” — $5 million ($59.7 mil.)
9. “Roman J. Israel, Esq” — $4.5 million ($6.2 mil.)
10. “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” — $4.4 million ($7.6 mil.)