Fresh off a box office victory in its debut weekend, Disney’s delightful Encanto is poised to grab the top spot again. The charming family film held almost fifty percent of its grosses and looks like it’ll take in about $13M. That’s maybe not the second weekend the Mouse House dreamed about when it first started putting the film together a few years ago, but for a round two after the pandemic started, that’s pretty solid business. Performance always needs to be considered relative to competition and circumstance.
There wasn’t a whole lot of new competition at the box office this weekend, but there were several holdover movies that did pretty well. Ghostbusters: Afterlife held strong on its third weekend, taking in more $10M more dollars and pushing its domestic total over $100M. House Of Gucci also held well, adding almost $7M additional dollars to its totals so far. You can check out the chart that outlines the full top ten below, per Box Office Mojo…
| TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESETIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Encanto | $12,739,000 | $57,959,641 | 1 | 3,980 |
| Ghostbusters: Afterlife | $10,350,000 | $102,191,594 | 2 | 4,059 |
| House Of Gucci | $6,773,404 | $33,641,223 | 3 | 3,477 |
| Christmas With The Chosen | $4,100,000 | $8,778,798 | Row 3 - Cell 3 | 1,700 |
| Eternals | $3,939,000 | $156,528,707 | 4 | 3,230 |
| Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City | $2,655,000 | $13,173,747 | 5 | 2,803 |
| Dune | $1,810,000 | $104,572,547 | 8 | 1,217 |
| Clifford The Big Red Dog | $1,800,000 | $45,728,389 | 6 | 3,261 |
| King Richard | $1,205,000 | $13,402,551 | Row 8 - Cell 3 | 2,654 |
| Sword Art Online | $1,050,000 | $1,050,000 | Row 9 - Cell 3 | 840 |
There aren’t really any double-take worthy numbers to discuss either on the upside or the downside of the weekend box office, but I will point to Christmas With The Chosen: The Messengers. The Christian flick broke records for Fathom Events and once again showed there is a robust audience looking for faith-based entertainment. Fortunately for that demographic, they’ll also be getting the Kurt Warner biopic American Underdog later this month which also incorporates many themes of faith, though more as part of a larger story than a consistent hard sell.
I also think it’s worth celebrating Dune, which is still hanging on during weekend seven. Much was made about Warner Bros decision to temporarily release the film simultaneously on HBO Max. That move no doubt left money on the table, but response from fans was very strong and many are still hitting up the theater now that it’s not on the streaming service anymore. It has crossed the one hundred million dollar mark and will definitely be getting a second round which has been greenlit.
No doubt Hollywood would have wished for stronger performance from a December box office weekend here, but much of the month’s overall success will come down to how Spider-Man: No Way Home performs. The superhero flick has been putting up tremendous pre-sale numbers, and there is a lot of buzz from fans who both want to see Tom Holland in the role again and figure out what the heck is going on with the Multi-Verse and which characters might end up showing up. It’ll almost certainly put up a tremendous opening weekend, but if the movie is as good as many think it will be, it could hold for quite awhile. We’ll see when No Way Home hits theaters on December 17th.
