Migration - $6.71m (biggest day of its run)

The Iron Claw - 1.7m
Already looking to be one of A24's biggest grossers, wonder where it'll end up.

Is iron claw really gonna go much past 25m? Looks like 5m this weekend. Don’t see much more than 10m after this weekend

So much for Wish being at least bigger than Migration. The Disney era of the 2010s is officially dead. Long live our Minions overlords.

Pretty sad Illumination is the top animation studio in terms of B.O, all they make are mediocre films.

Migration is a much better film than Wish, so there's that. Hopefully Disney's next animation is more to the quality of Encanto...

Good rebound for Color Purple and Aquaman, and solid for Anyone But You again.

The sky is literally the limit for Migration right now. So much will depend on 3rd weekend hold but with MLK weekend it's primed to have a very lucrative run. Will be at a 5X multiplier by only weekend 2. 10X multiplier seems low for it now. It could reach 7X by end of weekend 3.

Also, Godzilla Minus One looks to be the biggest foreign grosser of the decade, eventually getting past Parasite. That movie could have easily done <$5M domestic if it was bad and got a bad release but literally everything has gone right for it. The market shifted when the big movies flopped to allow Godzilla to overperform.

Japan had a big December. Too bad they put Perfect Days as their foreign film for the Oscars

Updated total projections based on Friday #'s:

1 Wonka $245M (+$5M)
2 Migration $155M (+$5M)
3 Aquaman $125M (+$18M)
4 The Color Purple $80M (+$2M)
5 Anyone But You $68M (+$3M)
6 The Boys in the Boat $63M (+$18M)
7 The Iron Claw $34M (+$2M)
8 Hunger Games $170M
9 Ferrari $24M (+$6M)
10 The Boy and the Heron $47M
11 Godzilla $59M (-$1M)
12 Trolls $107M (+$1M)
13 Poor Things $32M (+$2M)
14 Wish $66M (-$1M)
15 Napoleon $63M (-$1M)

Boys In The Boat far exceeding my initial box office expectations. Now feeling it could do $60M+.

Aquaman is holding as well as to be expected. If it follows Passengers from New Years on would be at about $127M so feel it will speed past $100M+ with fairly comfortable margin.

-30% for Aquaman is still pretty bad when looking at the other increases

Warner Bros. with a 1-2-4 finish. Marvellous!

Great for Wonka! I don't think it can get to $300M anymore, but passing the Tim Burton / Johnny Depp version should be assured now as well as an easy seasonal win. Sorry Taylor, you'll have to settle for second for once.

Think this was the best case for Aquaman. Releasing it in another date it probably would've done Marvels #s.

Boy and the Heron and Godzilla's grosses make me happy.

I love this factoid from Gitesh (boxoffice guru)

“Lot of talk about how there's no megahit tentpole this holiday season. But Top 10 this wknd was actually up 3% from last yr when #Avatar2 was out & up 10% from 2021 when #SpiderManNoWayHome was rocking it. Not many VFX-driven actioners, but wider selection is helping #boxoffice.”

This is very impressive and telling. Avatar 2 made 67.4 million on this weekend, and Puss at 16.8 only a bit behind Aquaman's 19.5. However the #3/#4 films Black Panther and I Wanna Dance With Somebody only made as much as the Iron Claw and Ferrari.

And actually, if you go beyond the top 10 it's also better as the 11-14 Godzilla, Poor Things, Trolls and Wish also have an advantage over last year's group where Strange World was 10th with just 500k. Poor Things would've been 6th and close to top 5 on last year's weekend.

Aquaman is holding better than what I thought after looking at abysmal reviews. Looking at sales, its seeing way more walkups than any DC flick I have ever tracked including The Batman (I was not tracking during 1st movie). May be the audience for the movie is slightly different from other DC flicks.

I think it's just a case of it playing older and maler than most of the other offerings, when, except for '20*, every Christmas since '09 offered some kind of blockbuster in the action/adventure mold.

(And who knows, if not for Covid, WW84 probably would have made 100 million plus)

Well yeah, WW1984 would've opened to waay above 100m with no covid. Hype was there.

100%

Looks like Sunday was overestimated by studios for most movies...

Wonka almost $1.3M down, Aquman $1.2M down, Color Purple $1.3M down, Anyone But You $250K.

Also interesting how Hollywood says box office will be at $9.0B+ for 2023. I guess Mojo was off by about $100M in terms of tracking annual box office...

Let's see if Color Purple gets any type of big increase for MLK 4th weekend for it.

Also on the annual comparisons to 2022, this weekend was solid but for Spider-man, I'm pretty sure lots of theaters were starting to shut down for omicron around then, especially in Canada so not sure if being marginally better than that weekend was too impressive.

It also would have opened in summer. What were the holiday offerings of 2020 going to be?

Edit: Looks like it would have been Dune. I bet that gets to $200M+ pretty easy in that spot.

This is what I always thought, a big chunk of the crowd is the same people who watch Fast & Furious who like their movie stars to be fitness bros (which is Jason Momoa's appeal). That crowd has...lower expectations, let's put it that way. Critics won't see eye to eye w them.

My updated projections post NYE weekend. Didn't see as big a spike from Wonka and could still play as the default family movie for weeks so still could go higher. Aquaman and BITB's holds are making me spike those total estimates. Color Purple may not make the top 5 Christmas movie list if Anyone But You and BITB catch up to it.

1 Wonka $230M (-$10M)
2 Migration $155M (+$5M)
3 Aquaman $125M (+$18M)
4 The Color Purple $76M (-$2M)
5 Anyone But You $68M (+$3M)
6 The Boys in the Boat $66M (+$21M)
7 The Iron Claw $35M (+$3M)
8 Hunger Games $169M (-$1M)
9 Ferrari $21M (+$3M)
10 The Boy and the Heron $47M
11 Godzilla $60M
12 Trolls $105M (-$1M)
13 Poor Things $32M (+$2M)
14 Wish $66M (-$1M)
15 Napoleon $64M

Had Aquaman done 200m+ and Color Purple 100m+ I think that would've made for a great holiday season. As is it's nice to see most things do at least decently.