Taking down Napoleon & Wish, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes pulled off a surprising Thanksgiving weekend victory.
Last week it seemed the writing was on the wall: audiences weren’t very interested in the latest Hunger Games offering. Opening to a less than expected $44.6 million combined with the general front loaded nature of franchise films, it seemed The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes was going to struggle to recoup its modest (by today’s standards) $100 million budget. Well, this weekend showed that the 90% audience score is no fluke as the prequel surprisingly remained in first place with an additional 3-day take of $28.8 million, a loss of just 35%, far less than the 60% we predicted on Thursday, while its 5-day holiday results saw a solid $42 million. It would seem the odds actually were ever in their favor! You can check out Tyler Nichols’ 5/10 review here.
Second place belongs to the Ridley Scott epic Napoleon with a 3-day take of $20.4 million and a 5-day take of $32.5 million. Those are some pretty solid numbers for this two and a half hour historical tale of France’s diminutive leader. That number puts it in line with Apple’s last theatrically released epic Killers of the Flower Moon which saw a $23.2 million debut last month. The thing these two films have in common: $200 million budgets. The other thing they have in common: those budgets don’t really matter! Generally a debut like this for a film budgeted that high would be catastrophic, but these are Apple produced films who spent that money knowing full well it was an investment in their streaming service Apple+. Both films used larger studios to help distribute their films, Killers was distributed by Paramount while on Napoleon Apple partnered with Sony. You can check out Chris Bumbray’s 8/10 review here.
Unfortunately for Disney, with The Hunger Games prequel landing in first and Napoleon pulling in stronger than expected numbers, the expected winner of the weekend, Wish, is forced to move all the way down to third place with a $19.5 million 3-day take and a full 5-day opening at $31.7 million. Sadly, that number is softer than films like Frozen & Frozen II, Moana, Coco and Ralph Breaks the Internet that all opened during Thanksgiving and more in line with recent lackluster openings like Encanto and Strange World. Although if this film can eventually find its audience the way Encanto did, the end of this story won’t be so grim. Of course, Encanto had a budget that was at least $50 million shy of Wish’s reported $200 million and had a solid 93% audience score, whereas Wish currently sits at 81%. It will be interesting to see if this one has legs throughout the holidays, but it probably needed a stronger debut if it wanted to be considered a success. You can check out JimmyO’s 8/10 review here.
Fourth place will go to the Anna Kendrick/ Justin Timberlake voiced threequel Trolls Band Together with an additional $17.5 million added to its domestic total of $64.4 million. Not quite the numbers the original film saw, but with the holiday season in full swing this one still has the chance to leg out to a decent finish.
Last week when the unofficial numbers came out, it looked like Thanksgiving had come in fourth place, narrowly being beat by The Marvels. Yet when the actual numbers were released on Monday, it was Thanksgiving that had chopped the head off The Marvels by finishing nearly $200,000 ahead of the comic book film. This weekend is seeing a bit larger of a gap between the two as Thanksgiving had a tremendous hold, losing just 31% of its audience for a $7.1 million 3-day haul. It seems word of mouth for this holiday horror hit is solid as fans gobbled up this Eli Roth directed splatter fest, based off his 2007 Grindhouse trailer. As I have said before, the opening Black Friday scene of this film is worth the price of admission alone. You can check out Tyler Nichols’ 8/10 review here.
Rounding out the top ten are your holdover titles such as The Marvels with an additional $6.4 million added to its not so great $76.8 million domestic total while spot seven goes to tremendous film The Holdovers that actually gained 2% over last week with a $2.7 million weekend as word of mouth for this sure to be Best Picture nominated film spreads. Next on the list is Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour with an additional $2.3 million added to its record setting $178.2 million domestic total. As the concert film makes its way out of theaters, fans of concert films don’t have to worry as next week sees the release of Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé (I guess she directed it?). Ninth place belongs to the killer animatronics of Five Nights at Freddy’s with an additional $1.75 million added to its impressive $136.2 million domestic total (off just a $20 million budget) While the Emerald Fennell written and directed film Saltburn continues its expansion with a 3-day take of $1.73 million, representing an impressive 438% gain from last week.
What do you make of The Hunger Games triumphant comeback? Were people just not interested in the competition or did the franchise film just need some time to find its audience? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to take our weekly poll where we ask: What is your favorite Disney Animated Film?