Industry News
by saidiontheside

Saidi’s Take – 11/29/2022

Hello everyone,

  • “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” was the #1 movie of the weekend by far with approx. $64 million 5-day and approx. $45 million weekend.  The animated “Strange World” was #2 but it’s considered a “bomb” since it made approx $12 million weekend and made approx. $19 million 5 day.  Netflix doesn’t announce their box office but it’s estimated that “Glass Onion” was the best theatrical opening weekend for Netflix with an estimated $13 million 5 day and a little under $10 million weekend. Overall the 3 day weekend total domestic box office was approx. $93 million – slightly lower than last weekends total – and the 5 day holiday weekend total was approx. $133 million.  The totals were worse than last year ($96 3 day and $142 million 5 day for Thanksgiving last year) and they’re approx. half of pre-pandemic numbers (2019 was $181 million 3 day and $262 million 5-day – and that was LOWER than the 2018 Thanksgiving weekend).  Before the pandemic started, the last 3-day Thanksgiving weekend total less than $100 was 28 years ago in 1994.
  • A lot of people are wondering about the box office numbers of the animated “Strange World”.  The critics reviews were somewhat good (74% positive) but it’s the first Disney animated movie to not get an A- or better on CinemaScore audience polling.  Some say it’s because one of the main characters in the animated family movie is gay, some say it’s due to lack of advertising, and some say the movie would have been better suited for Disney+.
  • Movie theaters are still grumbling about Netflix because they won’t release official box office numbers for “Glass Onion” and – despite having THE BEST PER SCREEN AVERAGE this weekend (It was only on 696 screens so its per screen average was $13.5 thousand per screen – “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” was on 4300 screens so it’s per screen average was only $10.6 thousand per screen) – they still say the movie will stop playing in movie theaters TOMORROW NIGHT.  So, if you want to see “Glass Onion” in a movie theater you need to go tomorrow (Tuesday Nov 29).  On Wednesday it won’t be playing in movie theaters anymore.

Little bit of humor:

I agree!!!  Give the dog from “Silence of the Lambs” its own movie.  They can call it “Put the Dog in the Basket”.