Strange World takes second place in its opening weekend. This film bombed an opening holiday weekend. Some movies just need to be released on a streaming service. While others like Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery should be released in theaters. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever continued to print money as it stayed on top.
Sometimes Disney just doesn’t have everything working for it. Strange World is going to be losing over $100 million in its theatrical run. This film was expected to gross around $30-$40 million at the box office. Being in over 4,000 theaters it seemed like it would be easy to make that kind of money. Yet, without the viewers, this film grossed $11 million. The pandemic has changed the theatrical release landscape. It will be interesting to see how things change at Dinsey with Bob Iger making a return as CEO.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was only released in 696 theaters. Netflix released this film a week. Think of this movie had been released in over 4,000 theaters. It easily could have grossed over $30 million in one week. This film was able to gross an estimated $9.4 million in its opening weekend. Look for this film on Netflix on December 23rd. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was able to gross $45.9 million as it crossed over that $600 million worldwide mark. Don’t expect this movie to drop from number one until the second Avatar movie is released.
Weekend Top Three
3. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery $9.4 million
2. Strange World $11 million
1. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever $45.9 million
Devotion was also released this holiday weekend. It was able to gross $5.6 million, giving it a total of $9 million domestically. It should be interesting to see how much this Korean War-era film will gross in this current climate. If this movie had been released this past Summer it probably could have gotten a bump from Top Gun: Maverick.
Next weekend the holiday movie Violent Night will be released in a large number of theaters. This absurd Santa film with David Harbour as the jolly hero. It should be able to take second place. I don’t know when theaters will get back to pre-pandemic behaviors.