You’re A Rich One, Mr. ‘Grinch’: Illumination-Universal Toon Sees $78M+ Four-Day Opening – Update
Updated Tuesday 7:52 AM after Monday 11:04 PM post: With many schools taking Monday off for the Veterans Day holiday, weekend turnstiles didn’t stop spinning with Illumination-Universal’s The Grinch grossing an estimated $10.7M, -50% from Sunday taking its four-day opening to $78.2M. ComScore reported that close to half of all K-12 schools were off yesterday along with 28% colleges.
It’s already been declared that The Grinch is the biggest Christmas-theme pic opening of all-time, beating his 2000 live-action self which was directed by Ron Howard ($55M 3-day), but next to other Illumination titles and their first four days at the B.O., the Green One feasibly beat The Lorax ($73.7M), Despicable Me ($63.9M), Sing ($41.4M) and Hop ($39.8M). A hold in the -40% range is in store this coming weekend for The Grinch as Warner Bros.’ Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald flies in to feast on more pre-Thanksgiving dollars, which many in the industry believe is at $70M (the 2016 first chapter opened to $74.4M). In regards to what worked for Universal’s launch of The Grinch and what went wrong with Paramount’s Overlord and Sony/MGM/New Regency’s The Girl in the Spider’s Webwe drilled down here in our previous update.
In second place, 20th Century Fox/New Regency/GK Films‘ Bohemian Rhapsody made $35.6M per industry estimates from Friday to Monday, bringing its 11-day total to $104.8M. The Freddie Mercury biopic’s second weekend hold of -39% ($31.2M) is even better than it appears since the movie had to give up most of its higher priced PLF and IMAX theaters to The Grinch and Overlord. Positive word of mouth is driving moviegoers to theaters and the picture has little adult competition over the next few weeks. Bohemian Rhapsody appears headed for $165M-$175M in North America, and that will increase should it receive key awards noms. The pic made an estimated $4.4M on Monday, -51% from Sunday’s $9.65M.
Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms takes 3rd place over 4 days with $11.7M and an 11-day running total of $37.4M. Monday earned $1.7M, -48% from Sunday.
Overlord logged an estimated $11.4M after a $1.2M Monday, -54%. Despite the critically acclaimed WWII-zombie movie coming in higher than its R-rated rival The Girl in the Spider’s Web which settled in 6th place with $8.7M, it’s not enough box office ammunition to keep the genre movie afloat on screen beyond two weeks. Spider’s Web earned $940K on Monday, -51%. With Bohemian and Warner Bros.’ A Star Is Born in the marketplace, it’s a fierce time for adult competition.
The latter takes 5th place with $9.3M after a $1.23M Monday, -48% from Sunday and a running total into its sixth week of $179.3M. Some box office analysts see the pic feasibly making $200M stateside. Terrific word of mouth is driving A Star Is Born with great stateside weekend-to-weekend holds. Make no mistake, even though Bohemian Rhapsody has earned more than A Star Is Born overseas (one is a globally renowned classic rock band, the other Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper singing country), $185.9M to $145.8M, the latter $40M production will still profit nicely despite high talent participations cutting into its bottom line. Ditto for Bohemian Rhapsody with its $55M production cost before P&A; black ink will flow.
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