Hello everyone,
BOX OFFICE: “Wonka” stayed at #1 with only $14 million. For new movies, the highest opening was the thriller “Night Swim” which came in at #2 with $11 million. The total box office was down 18% from the same weekend last year when “Avatar The Way of Water” was dominating the box office. Also, except for during the pandemic (2021 and 2022), this past weekend was the first time the total domestic box office was under $100 million since 1997.
WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: In international markets, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” was the biggest box office with a worldwide total now approaching $340 million and “Wonka” also did pretty well with a worldwide total approaching $470 million.
2023 WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: The worldwide box office for 2023 total were announced recently. The estimated worldwide total for 2023 came out to $33.9 billion which is 31% rise over 2022 but still approx. 15% lower than pre-pandemic levels in 2018-2019. Just like the total 2023 domestic box office, the 2023 worldwide box office may have benefitted from more movies being released. In 2022 there was 1 movie that made over $2 billion (if you include the money the movie made in 2023) and 2 that made over $1 billion. In 2023 there were 2 movies that made over $1 billion. In 2022, ALL the top 5 movies made MORE than $940 million, in 2023 only the top 3 movies made more than that.
AWARD NEWS: The Golden Globes award show was on last night and – once again – proved how pointless they are.
“Barbie” got an award just for being the box office winner of 2023 (something I predicted the minute the new award category was announced) and an award for best song by Billie Eilish (which was also predictable).
Other than that, “Oppenheimer” swept almost everything it was nominated for. For the movies it wasn’t nominated for, “Best Actress (drama), went to “Lily Gladstone” in “Killers of the Flower Moon”, “Poor Things” and “The Holdovers” split the musical/comedy awards, “Anatomy of a Fall” won best foreign language film, and “The Boy and the Heron” won best animated film.
As usual for the Golden Globes, many of the other movies nominated (including Taylor Swifts concert movie) was nominated just so the people would come to the award show. Jennifer Lawrence actually mouthed “If I don’t win I’m leaving” when they announced her name for best actress (musical or comedy). Not sure if she left right after that.
For the television awards, apparently there were only 3 TV shows worth watching last year. “Succession” won all the TV drama awards, “The Bear” won all the TV musical or comedy awards, and “Beef” won all the miniseries or made for TV movie awards. The only other TV show win was Ricky Gervais for best stand-up comedy show (the show which JUST PREMIERED ON NETFLIX 2 WEEKS AGO) and an actress from “The Queen” managed to get a best supporting actress award.
LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR….
A couple humor items from the Golden Globes…..
Ricky Gervais was one of the people saying he wouldn’t win….until he did.
A few years ago, Patton Oswalt posed for a photo at the Arbys in Hollywood the night he won an Emmy. Although he didn’t pose for it, Paul Giamatti did a similar thing at the In and Out in Westwood last night after his Golden Globe win.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 