Note: all figures discussed here are for the three-day weekend unless stated otherwise
Well, 2024 is going out with a bang at the domestic box office as a flurry of hits entered the marketplace. Excitingly, a slew of different kinds of movies excelled even as a bunch of family films dominated the marketplace. Weirdo horror features, music biopics, erotic thrillers, historical epics, they all had a place here. This is what happens when there’s variety in the marketplace, you get four separate movies that each grossed $20+ million. That’s a tremendous feat for any late December frame!
Leading the pack again was Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which grossed $38 million (a 37% dip from its opening weekend) for a 10-day gross of $136.8 million domestically. This Jeff Fowler directorial effort is only days away from exceeding the first Sonic's domestic haul. If it doesn't fall off a cliff in the new year, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is poised to become the first live-action video game movie to exceed $200 million domestically. Simply outstanding numbers, though it was another holdover that’s really impressive with its December legs.
In second place was Mufasa: The Lion King, which unexpectedly dominated the box office on Christmas Day. Grossing $37 million over its second weekend of release, Mufasa improved on its domestic debut by 5% and has now grossed $114 million after ten days of release. That means it's nearly tripled its $35.4 million domestic bow after just two weekends! With a $200 million price tag, Mufasa has a long way to go before it’s profitable. There’s also no way its domestic cume comes even close to its predecessor's mighty $534 million North American sum.
Still, last weekend it looked like Mufasa might limp to a $140 million domestic finish. Now, it looks assured to hit $200+ million in North America before it’s through. Clearly, many moviegoers were planning on checking out Mufasa over Christmas Day and beyond rather than just rushing out to see it on opening weekend. Good word-of-mouth is also clearly buoying it, as Mufasa hasn’t plunged like a stone after December 25th. It’ll be mighty fascinating to see how Mufasa holds in the weeks ahead, especially with no new family movie juggernauts on the horizon for January.
The biggest of this weekend's newcomers was Nosferatu, which grossed $21.1 million over its three-day bow. In one weekend, Nosferatu almost matched the lifetime domestic cume of the past Robert Eggers movie The VVitch and doubled the domestic bow of the filmmaker’s 2022 feature The Northman. It’s also left the opening weekends of countless other 2024 horror movies in the dust…and that’s after burning off demand on Wednesday and Thursday! In its first five days of release, Nosferatu has grossed a little over $40 million!
What's especially impressive here is that vampires (unless they're Twilight or voiced by Adam Sandler) don't have the best modern box office track record. Universal's tried rebooting Dracula multiple times to dismal box office results, while Morbius, Abigail, Dark Shadows, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter are among the many vampire movie flops that have graced theaters in the last 15 years. In just five days, though, Nosferatu has already surpassed the lifetime domestic hauls of 30 Days of Nights and Daybreakers and it won't be stopping anytime soon.
How did it buck this box office trend? Simple: by leaning into being the "naughty" Christmas movie. That angle worked well for The Girl with Dragon Tattoo ("the feel-bad movie of the holiday season") and The Wolf of Wall Street in the 2010s. Nosferatu successfully urged folks to "succumb to the darkness" over a time period where movie theaters were dominated with cheery fare. Residual goodwill from past Eggers movies and the scarcity of other modern Nosferatu rehashes also aided this title. Nosferatu’s still got plenty of box office gas in the tank and should become only the fourth Focus Features release ever to exceed $70 million domestically.
Wicked had an outstanding sixth weekend at the domestic box office, grossing $19.4 million, a roughly 37% increase from last weekend. That’s the eighth-biggest sixth weekend in history and fifth biggest ever for a movie that didn’t start in limited release. Wicked’s numbers have been impressive already, but this is an especially dazzling hold and sixth-weekend sum. Wicked now stands at $424.2 million domestically, a staggering sum. Also this weekend, Wicked hit $634.2 million domestically worldwide, meaning it surpassed Mamma Mia! as the biggest stage musical adaptation at the worldwide box office. The box office achievements just keep on coming for this feature.
In its fifth weekend of release, Moana 2 rounded out the top five with another $18.2 million, a 37% increase from last weekend. That's a better increase than Frozen II's final December weekend 30% jump, though behind Ralph Breaks the Internet's 43% leap over the same timeframe. Moana 2 has now reached $394.6 million domestically and will exceed $400 million domestically sometime this week.
Disney had half of the sixth-biggest movies in North America this weekend. Following its two animated Walt Disney Pictures release, that third feature was Searchlight Pictures title A Complete Unknown. This Bob Dylan biopic turned in sturdy numbers this weekend, grossing a solid $11.6 million over its three-day box office. Over its first five days of release, Unknown has grossed $23.1 million. Timothee Chalamet’s just got a grip on the general populace and Bob Dylan’s proven an enduringly popular musician.
Combining the two with some award-season buzz was enough to create a box-office hit. The prospect of some high-profile Oscar nominations should be enough to ensure that Unknown won’t just be impressive financially over its first five days of domestic play. A Complete Unknown is only the 45th movie to clear $20+ million domestically for its arthouse distributor across its incarnations as both Fox Searchlight and Searchlight Pictures. Right now, Unknown is well on track to becoming only the 17th title ever from this studio to exceed $40+ million in North America. See what happens, Disney, when you don’t send Searchlight titles to Hulu?
The latest “mainstream” A24 release dropped in theaters this week in the form of the erotic thriller Babygirl. This Nicole Kidman star vehicle grossed $4.39 million over its first three-day weekend (it’s grossed $7.2 million since Wednesday). While not a mammoth bow by any means, it's in the same ballpark as the $4.8 million debut of A24's The Iron Claw from last December. The dearth of modern theatrically-released erotic thrillers means that there aren't a ton of modern box office comparisons for Babygirl, though its five-day haul was on par with the three-day domestic debut of Addicted in October 2014. If this can just inch its way past $20 million domestically, all involved will be in fine shape.
Gladiator II is still kicking in the marketplace as it eased 9% and grossed another $4.1 million for a $163 million domestic total. Down in ninth place was Homestead, which has proven very frontloaded despite its prime release date. While Mufasa went up over its opening weekend, Homestead plummeted 47% in its second frame, grossing just $3.19 million. Its domestic total is still an okay $12.8 million but this will struggle to reach $18 million in North America.
Rounding out the top ten was the last big new wide release of the weekend, The Fire Inside. This Rachel Morrison directorial effort technically began filming back in March 2020 before COVID-19 shut down shooting after just a handful of days. Much like with The Current War in October 2019, The Fire Inside making it to the big screen at all feels like a victory. Its opening weekend numbers certainly weren’t triumphant, as it grossed a poor $2.03 million over the three-day frame. That’s less than 40% of what fellow Amazon MGM Studios Christmas Day sports movie The Boys in the Boat delivered on just its opening day alone last year. Inside’s five-day total stands at just $4.3 million.
Kraven the Hunter fell 44% this weekend to gross another $1.7 million. Its domestic haul now stands at a dreary $21.38 million. At least it got past the $20 million mark in North America, though it likely only has $2-3 million left in the tank. Also in its third weekend, this frame was The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, 63% to gross another $455,000 for an $8.59 million domestic total. This one's not getting past $10 million in North America, a disastrous outcome. Even by the standards of the 2024 anime feature, Rohirrim is a massive dud. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever understandably fell 57% this frame now that Christmas is firmly in the past. Grossing another $335,000, its domestic total stands at $39.71 million.
Moving on to the arthouse titles, The Brutalist, slightly expanding to seven locations, grossed another $185,000 for a $26,428 per theater average. That's a better per-theater average than the one The Zone of Interest mustered up over December 2023's final weekend. The Brutalist has now grossed $669,000 domestically after just ten days of release and playing in only seven movie theaters. Flow continued to hold terrifically in the marketplace, easing only 16% from last weekend for a $194,850 gross from 109 theaters and a $1,788 per theater average. Its domestic gross stands at a strong $2.2 million to date.
A Real Pain eased 33% to gross another $153,000 for a $7.66 million domestic total while Anora dipped 32% to gross an additional $118,250 for a $14.08 million domestic haul. All We Imagine as Light eased a tiny 16% this frame to gross an additional $53,700 at 31 locations for a $1,732 per theater average and a $629,746 domestic gross. IFC Films, meanwhile, dropped Bloody Axe Wound in 237 locations to dismal results. This title only grossed $45,000 for an atrocious $190 per theater average. Really impressive this frame was The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which expanded into 18 locations and grossed $36,000 for a $2,000 per theater average. That's an improvement on its per theater average from last weekend (despite expanding its theater count by 80%) and its largest single-weekend haul to date. Fig has now taken in $227,559 domestically.
Nickel Boys fell a worrisome 49% this weekend to gross another $32,000 from five locations for a $6,400 per theater average. That drop is largely due to a 71% Friday-to-Friday decline (its Saturday and Sunday dips from last weekend were more standard), but still not ideal. This RaMell Ross directorial effort has now grossed $215,030 after 17 days. September 5, also in its third weekend, continued to disappoint, grossing $22,000 from five locations for a $4,400 per theater average and $205,000 domestic total. Given its currently minimal Oscar prospects, September 5’s future box office outlook is not good.
Better Man hit a flat note in its limited-release domestic debut, grossing just $18,000 from six locations for a $3,000 per theater average. After five days, it's only taken in $35,000 domestically. Dropping in a single location was Vermiglio with $8,450 while 2073 opened in two theaters and grossed $5,115. Right behind it was Santosh, which amassed $5,100 from a single theater.
The top ten movies this weekend grossed $159 million, making this the first final weekend of December in the 2020s to exceed $150+ million, yay! While down from this same frame in 2019, December 2024's final weekend wasn't too far off (just 18% in fact) from December 27-29, 2019's $186.7 million haul. This gross was only 4% behind the $165.7 million gross in December 2018's final frame and down just 7% from the last three-day December 2017 weekend.
December 2024 probably won't reach $1+ billion like all but two December's did in the 2010s (thanks a lot Kraven the Hunter!), but it won't be far off with a final haul around $970-ish million. With that projected gross, 2024's annual domestic gross will just exceed $8.55 billion. That's down roughly 5% from last year's domestic haul, but not bad for a year so often deprived of new releases. 20% of that annual haul came from November and December alone, a testament to the importance of varied and hefty release schedules. Looking back on 2024, months without any major new releases like January, February, and October 2024 were the year's Kryptonite. We need a steady stream of new projects rather than just praying to God that a single Joker: Folie a Deux or Argylle carries the marketplace.
Wicked, by contrast, has been massive but it’s also not the only big hit in the marketplace in the final six weeks of 2024. Titles big (Sonic the Hedgehog 3) and smaller (A Complete Unknown) have stepped in to get people charging into their local movie theaters. It really is that simple: a varied release schedule delivering movies from all genres year-round is the key to box office glory. That was the norm pre-2015 before studios shifted to a “blockbusters only” mentality that’s proven catastrophic post-March 2020. Christmas 2024 offered a glimpse into what could be for the future of theatrical cinema, with a variety of motion pictures excelling. We’ll see if studios in 2025 actually build on that potential.