January 2025 continued its weak run this weekend, as no movies in the marketplace exceeded $15+ million and only one cracked the eight-digit mark. A lack of movies is killing that Thanksgiving and Christmas 2024 momentum that was so strong even three weekends ago. Topping this dismal crop of newcomers was Flight Risk, the latest Mark Wahlberg movie. It opened to $12.1 million, nothing special, but at least, unlike last March’s Arthur the King, its debut bore more of a resemblance to pre-COVID Wahlberg features.
Flight Risk was down 12% from Wahlberg’s August 2022 dud Mile 22, but did come in well ahead of his January 2013 drama Broken City. This motion picture also did 75% of the opening weekend of Gibson’s last directorial effort, Hacksaw Ridge. I saw pre-release projections for this one as low as $7 million last weekend, so getting to $12 million is a bit above expectations for Flight Risk. What kept it from going higher, though, was its marketing lacking an interesting protagonist.
These “bottle” movies with limited casts usually star a very famous actor (Sandra Bullock in Gravity, Matt Damon in The Martian, Will Smith in I Am Legend) navigating impossible odds for survival. Wahlberg technically filled in that role here, but he’s the bald bad guy, not the Mark Watney equivalent. That archetype was inhabited by Michelle Dockery in the final film, but she was absent from the general posters and commercials for Flight Risk. Lacking that kind of lead kept Flight Risk from truly soaring, even if putting Wahlberg back in his R-rated thriller comfort zone got some of his core fanbase back.
Also, Lionsgate got its second movie this month (following Den of Thieves 2: Pantera) to open higher than all of its 2024 domestic opening weekends. We’ll see if the home of Jigsaw and Katniss Everdeen can keep this momentum going into the rest of the year.
In second place was last weekend's domestic box office victor, Mufasa: The Lion King. Dipping 28% this weekend, Mufasa grossed another $8.7 million. If Dog Man and Paddington in Peru weren't about to take up the family audience, I'd say this one's current legs seem poised to take it $260-ish million. As it stands, it should make another $25 million in its solid domestic run. One of Them Days, meanwhile, had a promising second-weekend hold of 32%. Grossing another $8 million, this feature's now grossed $25.09 million over ten days of domestic play. It’s already nearly doubled its $14 million budget, not too shabby.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 kept on chugging this weekend, dropping 36% to gross another $5.5 million for a $226.09 million domestic total. Returning to the top five in its ninth(!!!) weekend of release was Moana 2, which grossed $4.3 million (a 28% dip from last weekend). Moana 2 has now grossed $450 million domestically and a little over $1 billion worldwide.
A year after its 2024 Sundance Film Festival bow, Presence finally made its general theatrical debut courtesy of distributor Neon. It opened to $3.4 million from 1,750 locations for a $1,951 per theater average. Among director Steven Soderbergh’s domestic opening weekends, this is roughly in the same ballpark as March 2018's Unsane, which debuted to $3.76 million. Among Neon horror movies, Presence was also 15% ahead of Cuckoo's August 2024 bow and came in 35% ahead of Infinity Pool's debut in January 2023 nearly two years ago to the date. This isn’t an extraordinary bow, but it’s also not terrible for an experimental horror movie that couldn’t have cost much to either acquire or market. Presence should become only the 13th Neon movie ever to clear $5 million domestically, a solid sign of the distributor’s increasing box office prowess in the last two years.
Wolf Man failed to recover from its poor opening weekend last frame. It plummeted 69% this weekend to gross another $3.4 million for a dismal $17.8 million domestic total. Newly crowned Best Picture nominee A Complete Unknown had the biggest gross this weekend of this year’s ten BP nominees. It grossed $3.1 million, a 17% dip from last weekend for a $62.9 million domestic total. In ninth place was Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, which isn’t holding nearly as well as its predecessor. Dropping 55% this weekend, it grossed $3 million this weekend for a $31.8 million domestic total.
The Brutalist finally expanded into wide release in its third weekend of release and grossed a solid $2.87 million at 1,118 locations for a $2,570 gross. Its domestic total now stands at $9.33 million, putting it $700,000 ahead of the lifetime domestic haul of The Zone of Interest. What’s potentially promising here is that Brutalist’s lengthy runtime limits the number of showings per day at theaters. It’s doubtful everyone who wanted to see The Brutalist this weekend did, in other words. We’ll see in the weeks to come, but this one could keep on legging out in wide release as it did in limited release for the last month. Exempting the IMAX-exclusive Interstellar reissue, The Brutalist, sometime this week, will become only the third limited release of 2024 to exceed $10 million domestically.
Right outside the top ten was Brave the Dark, the latest Angel Studios movie, which opened to only $2.56 million from 2,230 theaters for a middling $1,151 per theater average. That's the lowest wide release bow for an Angel Studios wide release, dethroning Sight's $2.7 million bow from last May. Moving on, Wicked dipped 33% to gross another $2.4 million for a $468.8 million domestic haul. Nosferatu dropped 51% this weekend grossing $2.05 million for a $93.2 million domestic haul.
September 5 expanded to 395 theaters and grossed $770,000 for a $1,949 per theater average and a $1.69 million domestic total. Meanwhile, GKIDS launched The Colors Within in 570 theaters and only got $378,022 (for only $663 per theater) for its troubles. In its third weekend of major release, The Last Showgirl fell 59% to gross another $360,800 for a $4.08 million domestic total. This feature's set to become only the 24th Roadside Attractions title ever to crack $4.5 million. A Best Picture nomination couldn't help Nickel Boys in its expansion to 540 theaters, where it only grossed $340,588 for a dismal $630 per theater average. This masterpiece has only grossed $1.5 million in its domestic run to date. Please dear reader, go see it theatrically while you have the chance!
Fellow Best Picture nominee I'm Still Here, meanwhile, grossed $240,131 from 17 locations this frame for a $14,125 per theater average and a $434,269 domestic total. Flow dipped 33% from last weekend to gross another $170,600 for a $3.71 million domestic haul.
Nickel Boys reflected the frustrating reality of trying to maintain the longevity of award season movies in the fragmented 2020s theatrical landscape was reinforced this weekend. In the past, Oscar nomination announcements would’ve lifted up the box office of all Best Picture nominees unless they’d been out since June or something. One of this year’s potential Best Picture frontrunners Anora also captured this tragic new normal.
Anora lost 219 theaters this weekend and dropped 27% to gross another $135,500 for a $15.06 million domestic total. No Oscar boost here despite this Sean Baker film being primed for such a jolt (Anora only played in wide release for 14 days back in November, remember). A couple of other Oscar contenders similarly had standard drops, like the 97th Academy Awards nominations never happened.
Did you know IFC Films launched a Phoebe Dynevor and Rhys Ifans action movie called Inheritance into 627 theaters this weekend? My job is to keep abreast of all new movies and even I had no idea until I checked The Numbers while writing this column! Grossing only $132,222 from 627 locations for an atrocious $210 per theater average, this is yet another IFC Films wide release dud from the last five months. Finally, Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story opened to $19,000 from a single theater.
The top ten movies this weekend grossed only $53.8 million, a dismal haul way below any typical late January weekend. This is what happens when major studios abandon the marketplace, simple as that. December 2024 holdovers and a smattering of Lionsgate action movies can’t carry the entire marketplace. Thankfully, next weekend Dog Man and Companion are set to debut with $10+ million hauls each. However, neither is going to be a breakout hit (as near as anyone can tell) and the holdovers beneath those two titles will drum up meager numbers. Salvation for the marketplace is far away.
Allow me to get on my soapbox for a second. Last Sunday, Matt Brennan of The Los Angeles Times published an outstanding article entitled "How Hollywood lost the culture war." Among the piece’s many insights is the observation that “the costs of cable, streaming, and a night out at the movies have combined to push consumers into the arms of conservative or ‘independent-minded’ podcasters and YouTubers whose content is free.” While major population centers in America like Detroit, Michigan or Milwaukee, Wisconsin are now either entirely or largely devoid of movie theaters, anyone can get on their phone and be “entertained” by right-wing YouTube fascists spewing hate.
This Los Angeles Times piece reminded me how we’ve got to make theatrical exhibitions more accessible. There’s a yearning from young people to go to movie theaters…maybe they would if ticket prices hadn’t skyrocketed as working-class wages remained stagnant. The lack of an Oscar nomination box office bump for nearly all titles this year got me thinking about how to make theatrical cinema more ingrained into public life again. How about making tickets to this year’s Best Picture nominees $5 for one week, for one thing? The last six weeks of 2024 were glorious for the domestic box office, but January 2025 shows there’s still so much work to be done. Things are weak right now, so why not try radically new things to bolster a flat-lining marketplace?