Box Office Breakdown for Weekend of 12/15/24
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Kraven the Hunter Performs Worse Than Both Morbius and Madame Web
As we wait for someone to coin the perfect name for the “garbage-verse” films that Sony has been putting out since Morbius (2022), the latest and likely last (at least for a while) release in that series, Kraven the Hunter, has found itself accomplishing something that many didn’t think possible: it lost to the opening weekend of Madame Web. While the newest release opened to about $11,000,000 domestically and $15,000,000 internationally, Madame Web’s total domestic opening wound up being $23,540,479 back in February of this year, which, before any international dollars are added, clearly puts it right up against the total worldwide opening gross of Kraven. Even Morbius was able to pull in $39,931,961 domestic when adjusted for inflation in its debut, which clearly demonstrates just how far these Sony films have fallen. It turns out that when you release movies featuring Spider-Man villains but then decide to leave out Spider-Man, your pocketbook is going to hurt quite a bit pretty quickly.
Things don’t get any better when you look at the reviews. Even the typically kinder audience over on Criticless currently has the score for Kraven the Hunter set to a “Decent” 51% rating. For comparison, this is actually quite a bit higher than the 29% “Bogus” score for Morbius and even better against the abysmal 18% “Heinous” score for Madame Web. Whether looking at the box office or the ratings, it is clear that the audience is just not interested in these kinds of stories. Sadly, if they had better writers and directors, they actually could have built up to something worth investing time in. As it stands, the best these movies can hope for is either a long life in meme culture and/or a potential future as a film experience like Tommy Wiseau’s The Room… but that remains to be seen.
According to the-numbers.com, the top 5 this weekend domestically were:
- Moana 2 (48% drop in 3rd weekend)
- Wicked (38% drop in 4th weekend)
- Kraven the Hunter ($11 million as new release)
- Gladiator II (38% drop in 4th weekend)
- The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim ($4.6 million as new release)
War of the Rohirrim, Y2K, and Werewolves All Flop; Interstellar Re-release Shines
Another film that debuted this weekend was the much anticipated The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. When this film was first announced, and even before any trailers started to drop, there was a lot of anticipation for this new foray into the works of Tolkien. After the garbage that has been Amazon’s Rings of Power, there was good reason to have some hope that a new project from Warner Bros. could finally give the fans something they could sit back and enjoy. This all changed, of course, once the first trailer dropped, and it was clear that the story would instead focus on an unnamed female character from the appendices of Tolkien’s works. Just when it seemed like Hollywood had begun to learn lessons from the past few years, we were once again reminded that there are still several movies left to be released that were delayed either due to COVID or the strikes from the last couple of years.
Looking at the numbers, War of the Rohirrim only made $4,600,000 domestically and $10,300,000 worldwide. With a reported budget of only about $30 million, the movie did not need to do much to make a quick buck at the theater. With these kinds of numbers, however, War of the Rohirrim currently stands at a loss of about -$40,190,000. Though this will not be anywhere close to the biggest box office flops of 2024, it is, without a doubt, still one of the biggest disappointments not only for those financially on the hook, but most especially for the fans who just want to be entertained.
This was also the second weekend for Rachel Zegler’s Y2K, Werewolves, and the re-release of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. In the case of Y2K, with an estimated budget of $15,000,000 and a second weekend total of only $3,763,863, we can project that the film will lose over $20 million by the time its run ends. For Werewolves, we still do not have box office totals being reported, and we have no idea how much the film actually cost to make. Even if it only cost about $10 million, because it opened to only $1,100,000 last week, we will just report that, in all likelihood, Werewolves will be another box office flop. Lastly, we get to the re-release of Nolan’s Interstellar, which wowed everyone last weekend with an insane $27,892 per theater in a limited release of only 165 theaters. The fact that the movie was able to do this years after its initial release and with such a low number of screens is one of the most impressive feats we have seen at the box office this year. Interstellar only dropped 28% from last week’s IMAX exclusive re-release and still made about $10,327 per screen after adding an additional 156 theaters. This is great news not only for Nolan fans but especially for any of those theater owners who were able to cash in on the audience it was able to bring out.
Due to time constraints, I cannot go in-depth on Wicked and Moana 2 this weekend, but I can briefly mention that both are still doing very well at the box office despite what some online channels are trying to say. As we prepare to enter the Christmas Holiday frame, be ready for even more money to be brought in by those two films alone. Add to that the upcoming release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Mufasa: The Lion King, and Nosferatu, and you have a possible recipe for a very lucrative box office season.
If you want further analysis on these or any other films, check out the full charting I do over at my website. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and, as always, God bless!
(If you ever want further insight into my methodology, see my previous articles HERE and HERE and the RCC method I use to break down movies internationally HERE.)
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If you want to know what kind of political leanings movies have or just talk about cinema, check out the movie ratings community Criticless.
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