West Side Story only does okay in America (at the weekend box office)
Steven Spielberg's musical remake doesn't have a huge opening, but everything else did even worse
If last week’s box office chart was a little dull, with virtually no change from the week before beyond the inclusion of Christmas With The Chosen: The Messengers (a movie featuring Christmas songs and the cast of a church-y TV show that is apparently extremely popular), then this week’s chart just might straight-up put you to sleep. But… that doesn’t mean you should stop reading this article about it!
The headline here, as spoiled by the headline up there, is the debut of Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, a remake that our own A.A. Dowd called “lavish and dynamically orchestrated.” Unfortunately, the box office receipts aren’t quite so exciting: The movie only made $10.5 million in its debut, which was only enough to secure the top spot because everything else is as dire as it has been for over a year now. The silver lining is that its per-screen average was good and it opened on fewer than 3,000 theaters, so there’s a chance it will hold on better than most other movies have lately.
Speaking of most other movies, they all fell pretty hard this week and stayed in the same spots as last week. Encanto made $9.4 million for a total of $71 million (which is medium good), Ghostbusters: Afterlife made $7.1 million for a total of $112 million, and House Of Gucci dropped nearly 50 percent to $4 million (it has made $41 million).
The next three are unchanged from last week: Eternals ($3.1 million), Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City ($1.6 million), and Clifford ($1.3 million). Resident Evil is the only one of those in particularly bad shape, though, having made only $15.8 million after three weeks. After that trio is Christmas With The Chosen, which made $1.2 million from people who were curious to see what this dang “Christmas” thing is all about. (There’s a baby and a star and three wise men, it’s pretty cool.)
Finally we have Dune and—after giving us a joyous one-week vacation of having to write out its silly full name—Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Both of them made less than $900,000. As for newcomers, football drama National Champions made $300,000 (but only made $250 per screen, which is bad), and Sean Baker’s very good Red Rocket made less than $100,000 (but that was only six screens, giving it a respectable $16,000 average). Also, Halloween Kills made $5,000 this weekend in theaters! That movie is bad and it’s December!
This all comes from Box Office Mojo, which has more detailed numbers. A full list of the top 10 is below.
- West Side Story
- Encanto
- Ghostbusters: Afterlife
- House Of Gucci
- Eternals
- Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City
- Clifford The Big Red Dog
- Christmas With The Chosen: The Messengers
- Dune
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage