Hello everyone,
BOX OFFICE: Disney is having a great 2024 but it’s final release of the year didn’t meet expectations. “Mufasa” was #2 this past weekend with $35 million. “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” zoomed past it and made approx $60 million. Some people were saying on Friday that it could be the best opening weekend for the franchise but there was a lot of people still holiday shopping, so it came out lower than “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” (which made $72.1 in its opening weekend in April 2022). However, there’s still hope that both movies will continue to do well at the box office this week since all schools are off for holiday break. “Wicked” is still doing well coming in at #3 with approx. $14.1 million. That makes it the #3 movie of 2024 with a domestic total of $384 million. It’s still FAR behind the #2 movie – “Deadpool and Wolverine” which has a domestic total of $636 million. “Moana 2” is closely following “Wicked”. It made $13.2 million and a total domestic box office of $359 million. That puts “Moana 2” at #5 for the top domestic movies of 2024 but I’m betting that it will pass the current #4 – “Despicable Me 4” which has a total of $361 million – by Monday. After #4 the box office takes a significant drop. The #5 movie at the domestic box office is the independent new release “Homestead” which only made $6 million, less than half the box office for #4.
The top four movies were still enough to boost the total domestic box office much higher than the previous weekend. The domestic total was $141 million which was approx. 51% higher than the previous $93.8 million. It was also higher than the same weekend last year which was approx. $94 million. If you include Christmas Day (which was a Monday last year) the 4-day weekend of 2023 was $157 million. Some people predict the 6 days from Friday – Wed (Christmas Day) this year will do a lot better than that.
“Mufasa” is apparently doing so badly I saw an advertisement online today promoting “Moana 2” RETURNING to the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood in 3 weeks on Jan 10. So, “Mufasa” only has a couple more weekends at the theater.
WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: Internationally, “Mufasa” did OK but not well. It made a somewhat unspectacular $87 million internationally for a worldwide total of $122 million. “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” doesn’t open in most international countries until next weekend or Christmas day. Meanwhile the worldwide top box office for 2024 looks different than the domestic top box office. “Moana 2” is now at #4 with $792 million. Unlike the domestic box office, it doesn’t have a chance of passing the #3 movie “Despicable Me 4” which is at $969 million. “Wicked” is far behind with a worldwide total of $572 million which is #6 and also far behind the #5 – “Dune Part 2” which has a worldwide total of $712 million.
OTHER NEWS:
Just shy of the end of 2024, Disney just passed $5 billion at the worldwide box office and $2 billion at the domestic box office. The first studio to do that since the pandemic started. Mostly thanks to “Inside Out 2”, “Deadpool and Wolverine” and “Moana 2” which made a combined $1.65 billion domestic and $3.83 billion worldwide.
There’s a lot of interest in the movies being released a year from now. There was already the next “Avatar” movie and “Wicked: For Good” scheduled for around one year from now. Now, they just announced that Paramounts “The Running Man” remake will be opening a little bit earlier (so it’s not opening against the “Wicked” sequel). It’s now scheduled for Nov 7, 2025.
Also, they announced that the Lionsgate movie directed by Paul Feig called “The Housemaid”, the Sony Pictures “Anaconda” remake, and the A24 biopic about the ping pong champion “Marty Supreme” starring Timothée Chalamet will ALL be released around Christmas 2025.
I’m not sure why, but Universal decided to announce recently that the next Christopher Nolan movie will be an adaption of “The Odyssey” filmed with brand new IMAX film cameras. They decided to announce it a full 18 months early since the movie won’t be released until July 2026.
LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR:
Is there a “Home Alone” sequel I’m not aware of? How do they make Stallone look like an 8-year-old??????
Merry Christmas and/or Happy Hannukah!
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 