The Walt Disney Co.’s « Wish » had been expected to rule the Thanksgiving weekend box office, but moviegoers instead feasted on leftovers.
The Walt Disney Co.’s « Wish » had been expected to rule the Thanksgiving weekend box office, but moviegoers instead feasted on leftovers, as « The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes » led ticket sales for the second weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Neither of the weekend’s top new releases — « Wish » and Ridley Scott’s « Napoleon » — could keep up with Lionsgate’s « Hunger Games » prequel. After debuting the previous weekend with $44.6 million, the return to Panem proved the top draw for holiday moviegoers, grossing $28.8 million over the weekend and $42 million over the five-day holiday frame.
In two weeks of release, « Songbirds and Snakes » has grossed nearly $100 million domestically and $200 million globally.
The closer contest was for second place, where « Napoleon » narrowly outmaneuvered « Wish. » Scott’s epic outperformed expectations to take $32.5 million over the five-day weekend and an estimated $20.4 million Friday through Sunday. The film, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the French emperor and Vanessa Kirby as his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais, was also the top movie globally with $78.8 million.
Reviews were mixed (61% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and ticket buyers were nonplussed (a « B- » CinemaScore), but « Napoleon » fared far better in theaters than its subject did at Waterloo.
« Napoleon, » like Martin Scorsese’s « Killers of the Flower Moon, » is a big-budget statement by Apple Studios of the streamer’s swelling Hollywood ambitions. With an estimated budget of $200 million, « Napoleon » may still have a long road to reach profitability for Apple, which partnered with Sony to distribute « Napoleon » theatrically. But it’s an undeniably strong beginning for an adult-skewing 168-minute historical drama.
