Last year, the Christmas box office was a big bummer. While James Cameron's Avatar: The Way Of Water had a nice second weekend, it and Joel Crawford's Puss In Boots: The Last Wish were the only films to bring in eight figures domestically. Now, the results are in for the holiday in 2023, and while there is a bright spot to be found in the fact that there are three features that earned eight figures in the last three days, the landscape is arguably even bleaker than what we saw in 2022.
Despite there being plenty of new releases to choose from – including James Wan's Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom, Benjamin Renner's Migration, Will Gluck's Anyone But You, and Sean Durkin's The Iron Claw – none of them made a particularly big splash in the last few days. Check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis.
As Expected, Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom Brings The DCEU To An End With A Whimper At The Box Office
Let's be blunt: based on what we've seen from the rest of 2023, Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom was always going to be doomed at the box office. DC Studios kicked off the year by announcing that a full franchise reboot was in the works, and that set up their entire slate for the year to die on the vine regardless of any buzz or positivity about quality (and there wasn't much). David F. Sandberg's Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, Andy Muschietti's The Flash, and Angel Manuel Soto's Blue Beetle each ended up being disappointments for the franchise, and now the final film of the DC Extended Universe has followed suit.
Buzz did nothing to help when critics dropped their thoughts about Aquaman 2 on Thursday morning, the film presently sporting a 36 percent grade on Rotten Tomatoes, but the blockbuster only making $28.1 million in its first three days is still quite rough. That's less business than what The Flash (a controversy magnet) and Shazam! 2 made in their debuts, and it's only about $3 million more than what Blue Beetle made when it arrived in mid-August.
Everyone saw this coming after witnessing developments over the last year, but as I noted in CinemaBlend's Aquaman And The Last Kingdom review, what makes this result so shocking is how the numbers compare to the first Aquaman movie. Not only did the new release manage to make less than half of what James Wan's previous DC blockbuster made in its first three days, but let's not forget that Aquaman is the highest grossing title in the history of DC Comics adaptations – having made $1.1 billion before the end of its worldwide theatrical run. The contrast between it and the performance of its sequel is shocking.
If we're hunting for silver linings, it can be said that Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom has already earned over $100 million globally, with overseas ticket sales adding over $80 million to the picture's gross... but that silver looks a lot more gray when you take into consideration the film's mammoth $205 million budget (via Variety). It's one of many examples from this year of a mega-blockbusters finding that their reach exceeds their grasp – with other titles including the aforementioned The Flash, James Mangold's Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Pt. 1 and Nia DaCosta's The Marvels.
As indicated by that list, it's mostly been a rough year for blockbusters in general, and as 2023 comes to a close next week, there will be a lot of chatter about the prospects of upcoming superhero movies in 2024. There are some heavy hitters set for release, including Shawn Levy's Deadpool 3 and Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie à Deux, but the market will otherwise be dominated by Sony's Spider-Man Universe, which has three titles set to come out in the next 12 months: S.J Clarkson's Madame Web, J.C. Chandor's Kraven The Hunter, and Kelly Marcel's untitled Venom 3. Given that franchise's history with quality (the Venom movies and Daniel Espinosa's Morbius) as well as the previews we've seen for those titles (the Madame Web trailer was viciously mocked), there are valid reasons for concern about the genre's future at the box office.
Migration Is Off To A Slow Start, But Could It Pull Off A Run Through January?
Unlike DC Studios, the animation production company Illumination has had a great year. Back in April, they released Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which had the second biggest opening weekend of 2023 and presently stands as the second highest grossing title of the year (having made $1.4 billion worldwide). The folks at the studio have reasons to pop champagne while looking back at 2023... though Migration is probably putting a bit of a damper on the end-of-year festivities.
Illumination has a steady record as a hit-maker, with franchises like Despicable Me, Minions, Sing and The Secret Life Of Pets, but Migration just had the weakest opening weekend of any title produced by the company. Per The Numbers, the new release opened in third place in its debut, making $12.3 million, and that's $10 million less than what Garth Jennings' Sing 2 was able to do in its opening weekend.
It's a tough start... but it would also be incredibly foolish to write the film off completely – especially given what we've seen happen with animated December releases in the last couple of years. The aforementioned Sing 2 ended up grossing over $400 million by the time it was done playing in theaters around the world. Puss In Boots: The Last Wish also only made about $12 million in its first three days last year, but it was a stalwart in the domestic Top 5 for all of January 2023, and it ended up making $484.7 million in ticket sales by the end of its global run (ultimately making it the 10th biggest film from 2022).
There are no guarantees that Migration will also demonstrate legs, but I will not be surprised in the slightest to see the title constantly reappearing as I write by box office columns next month.
Anyone But You And The Iron Claw Fail To Draw Any Attention
With optimism for Migration's box office future on the record, let's loop back to the more depressing results, shall we? The other two big wide releases to arrive on Friday were the new romantic comedy Anyone But You and the wrestling-centric documdrama The Iron Claw, and neither title managed to inspire much interest from movie-goers.
Despite featuring two hyped up-and-comers in Glenn Powell and Sydney Sweeney, Anyone But You followed middling buzz from critics with a rough start at the box office. Landing in fourth place, the feature only managed to make $6.2 million in the last three days, and it continues the rough trend in 2023 for comedies not titled "Barbie." It's far less than what Gene Stupnitsky's No Hard Feelings starring Jennifer Lawrence when it was released in June ($15 million), and even sinks below the earnings of rough releases like Josh Greenbaum's Strays ($8.2 million) and Adele Lim's Joy Ride. It's depressing, but it seems that people don't like going to movie theaters to collectively laugh anymore.
There admittedly isn't much to laugh about in The Iron Claw, but that fact evidently didn't help the new release much in the movie's first three days. The A24 release has been the subject of Oscar talk, and confidence from fall festival chatter saw the studio put the movie in over 2,700 theaters over the weekend, but it failed to garner much interest, and it ended up only earning $1,824 per location for a $5.1 million gross and sixth place in the Top 10.
Will we see much of a shakeup at the box office when George Clooney's The Boys In The Boat, Blitz Bazawule's The Color Purple and Michael Mann's Ferrari roll into theaters tomorrow for Christmas? Head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to find out and start planning your theater-going adventures in the coming year with our 2024 Movie Release Calendar.
