November 2024 kicks off with no new hits but incredibly leggy holdovers like Venom, Conclave, and The Wild Robot

This weekend was largely devoid of new major studio movies, save for the Sony/TriStar release Here. Back in 2012 and 2016, Hollywood had no problem launching major new movies the weekends before and after the general election. This year, though, major studios opted to wait until mid-November to launch new titles. That shift meant the early November marketplace was devoid of the big titles that have often dominated this time of year. However, with no major new movies taking up people’s attention or snagging screens, nearly all holdovers had impressive drops.

I’d also imagine people just want some escapism from the dystopic political landscape. Hollywood probably left some money on the table not launching a silly comedy this weekend, something extra frivolous for people to marinate in.

Those eye-popping holds were clear from the get-go with the biggest movie of the weekend. After coming in under expectations last weekend, Venom: The Last Dance eased just 49% this weekend to gross $26.1 million. That’s not just better than Venom’s 56% second-weekend decline and Venom: Let There Be Carnage’s 64% drop. It’s also not just much better than the 65+% drops most 2022 and 2023 superhero movies have experienced. Venom: The Last Dance even had a better second-weekend hold than most other Marvel Studios titles. Only five Marvel Cinematic Universe features had domestic second weekend holds beneath 50%. The Last Dance now joins a rarified company among leggier-than-expected superhero movies.

This excellent (and deeply unexpected given The Last Dance’s audience word of mouth) hold doesn’t mean the latest Venom movie will come anywhere close to the $200+ million domestic hauls of its predecessors. However, it’s already grossed $90.04 million domestically and there's not a ton of direct competition over the next two weekends. This one might get to $140 million in North America. That would honestly be an alright haul for a $120 million budgeted tentpole, especially given The Last Dance's outstanding international numbers.

Impressively, The Wild Robot shifted back to the number two spot at the domestic box office this frame. Not only that, but it increased a staggering 11% from last weekend. When does that ever happen in a movie's sixth weekend of release? Adding another $7.55 million, The Wild Robot has now grossed $121.47 million. As a theatrical title, The Wild Robot has built up excellent word of mouth propelling it to new box office highs in a marketplace devoid of new family movies. Expect this one to wrap up its run with $140-145 million domestically.

Halloween’s come and gone, but Smile 2 held nicely in its third weekend. Grossing another $6.8 million, Smile 2 dipped just 29% this frame. After 17 days, this sequel has grossed a solid $52.6 million. This should get to just over $70 million domestically when all is said and done. Warner Bros. reportedly refused to release Juror No. 2 in theaters due to a perception that adult-skewing dramas can't make money theatrically anymore.  Cut to the producers of Conclave saying "now comes the part where we throw our heads back and laugh!"

In its second weekend of release, Conclave had a divine hold. Easing a tiny 20%, it grossed another $5.3 million. That’s a terrific hold that gets even better (an astonishing 14%) when removing Conclave’s $500,000 Thursday night grosses from its opening weekend haul. This Edward Berger directorial effort is clearly benefiting from strong audience responses. Astonishingly, Conclave only added 43 theaters this weekend. It wasn't like this hold was due to Focus Features suddenly bringing the title into 3,000+ theaters. Good o'l word of mouth is working like gangbusters for this feature that's grossed $15.2 million to date. With $15.5 million after just ten days, Conclave has a good shot at exceeding $30 million domestically.

Adult dramas aren’t dead theatrically. You just have to make something that resonates with people. Failures in this field are caused by individual problems with the movies themselves. People abandoning non-tentpoles theatrically isn't the culprit. That brings us to the weekend’s big new flop. Getting the Forrest Gump crew (Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, director Robert Zemeckis, screenwriter Eric Roth) back together for Here resulted in a costly box office dud. Opening to just $5 million this weekend, It's also one of the worst launches ever for a Tom Hanks wide release, coming in just $300,000 ahead of 1984's Bachelor Party and behind Volunteers, The Money Pit, and Splash among his star vehicles. Even The Circle opened to $9 million over April 2017's final weekend.

The absolutely dreadful reviews for Here sealed its box office fate (an award-season adult drama cannot survive such toxic buzz). However, selling a film with an unmoving camera and lots of divisive digital de-aging effects, not to mention acclaimed but relatively obscure source material, was always going to be a challenge. It doesn’t help that Forrest Gump was 30 years ago. Getting the band back decades later had lost its luster for audiences. Hinging a multi-month-long marketing campaign on reminding people of Forrest Gump and that de-aging technology also failed to give people can’t-miss reasons to see Here. What made this particular movie special? The promotional campaign failed to answer that question and thus, audiences opted for Conclave and We Live in Time instead. Here didn’t bomb because it wasn’t a Marvel movie. It bombed because of elements very specific to this Robert Zemeckis production.

Speaking of that romantic drama, We Live in Time continued its very good domestic run this frame with a 28% hold. Its third wide release weekend scored another $3.47 million for a $17.6 million domestic total. Time is now easily poised to become the first 2024 limited release to crack $20 million domestically. Like Smile 2, Terrifier 3 kept chugging despite Halloween 2024 going into the past. Grossing another $3.2 million this weekend (a 32% ease from the last frame), Art the Clown's latest feature has now grossed $50.5 million. Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 grossed a fantastic $2.23 million this weekend, while just behind it was another Hindi-language title, Singham Again, which grossed $2.19 million. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice rounded out the top ten in its ninth weekend of release, dipping just 33% to gross another $2.09 million. It now stands at a massive $292.1 million domestically.

Anora kept on shining in its expansion to 253 theaters. Here, it grossed $1.89 million (up 109% from last weekend) for a $7,500 per theater average. While nowhere near as strong as Parasite’s $14,158 third weekend per theater average (though Anora is playing in twice as many theaters at the same point), its third weekend overall is slightly ahead of Parasite’s third frame. Evoking Parasite’s individual weekend grosses is incredibly promising for this breakout hit. This title's already grossed $3.946 million domestically before it's even hit wide release. It's also already the 18th biggest Neon movie ever domestically and just 2% behind Parasite domestically at the same point. And now we wait and see how it does over its wide-release expansion…

Liam Neeson's latest feature, Absolution, opened to just $1.42 million this weekend courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Pictures. Fascinating to see how Neeson's domestic openings have just dwindled in recent years. He still got Cold Pursuit to an $11.03 million bow as late as February 2019. Now, three of his last four wide-release movies have opened below $2 million domestically. At least this opened 40% better than In the Land of Saints and Sinners (also distributed by Samuel Goldwyn) from back in March. Perhaps this even has a shot at becoming only the 14th Samuel Goldwyn Films release to hit $3 million domestically. Dropping in 2,000 theaters this weekend was Hitpig. This Jason Sudeikis-headlined feature came from Viva Pictures, a domestic distributor focusing on animated family movies. Grossing just $1.1 million this frame, Hitpig was a flop and only scored $535 per theater. It's Viva's second title ever to crack $1 million domestically, a dreary sign for the distributor.

Godzilla Minus One returned to 1,365 theaters this weekend to celebrate Godzilla's 70th anniversary. Grossing another $510,000 for a $374 per theater average and an astonishing $56.92 million lifetime domestic haul. Horror movies just held so sturdy over the weekend even with Halloween in the rearview. This trend extended to The Substance, which grossed a robust $476,273 this frame. Easing just 24% in its seventh weekend of release, The Substance has now grossed $15.44 million. The Substance has narrowly outgrossed MaXXXine among 2024 domestic grossers and will exceed the domestic grosses of Borderlands and Immaculate sometime this week. Another wide release bomb this weekend another misfire from distributor Blue Fox Entertainment. Lost on a Mountain in Maine opened to just $380,000 from 630 locations for a $603 per theater average. The sad thing is that a disappointing opening indicates this will easily become Blue Fox’s second-biggest movie ever domestically in just a few days.

Transformers One fell another 51% this weekend, grossing $365,000. With just $58.5 million domestically, this one won't hit $60 million domestically Speaking of family movie underperformers, for reasons we'll never understand, Lionsgate expanded White Bird: A Wonder Story back into 952 theaters this frame. That re-release didn't get much interest from people as it grossed just $300,000 for a $315 per theater average. Domestically, this feature grossed a disastrous $4.6 million.

Warner Bros. is taking the coward's way out on Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 in many ways, including dumping it in 35 theaters and not reporting box office grosses for it. Allegedly, the feature grossed roughly $260-275,000 this weekend at 35 locations. On the higher end, that would result in a $7,800 per theater average. That solid per-theater average and a reported 12% Friday-to-Saturday increase suggest this title’s doing good business in the few theaters it’s inhabiting.

A Real Pain was the latest indie title to score strong numbers in limited release. Opening in just four locations, Jesse Eisenberg’s latest directorial effort bowed to $240,000. That $60,000 opening weekend per theater average is the third best of 2024. Now let’s see if this expands as successfully as Anora or crumbles in a wide release like Saturday Night.

Luther: Never Too Much opened to a solid $122,028 from nine locations for a $13,559 per theater average. Did you know a schmaltzy inspirational drama about Jesus Christ befriending an ancient MMA fighter opened this weekend? Yes, The Carpenter attempted to woo both MMA fans and Christians this weekend in 500 theaters, an inexplicably large theatrical footprint. Putting The Carpenter everywhere didn’t help its box office run. This feature grossed just $140,000 for a disastrous per-theater average of only $290. Now that’s a financial roundhouse kick to the face!

Despite scoring some of the best reviews of the year, Memoir of a Snail is already losing steam domestically. In its second weekend of North American play, the feature expanded to 24 locations and grossed $70,250 for a disappointing $2,927 per theater average. After ten days, this title has grossed $145,091. Also not reporting grosses this weekend was Steve McQueen's new movie Blitz. This title's only playing in a handful of theaters before it’s rushed to Apple’s streaming service the weekend before Thanksgiving. Thanks Apple TV+! God, the age of conglomerates is the woooorst. Anywho, outlets like Deadline allege Blitz grossed $60,000 from three theaters for a solid $20,000 per theater average.

Dahomey expanded to nine locations and grossed just $13,230. That's a 49% decline from its opening weekend while it also only mustered $1,470 per theater. After ten days, the latest Mati Diop movie has grossed $52,524. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat opened in a single theater this frame and grossed $9,076.

The top ten movies this weekend grossed just $62 million. Despite all the incredible holds from the October 2024 holdovers, that’s still a disastrous haul for the first weekend of November. Typically, the inaugural weekend of this month houses a major blockbuster like Thor: Ragnarok, Bohemian Rhapsody, Doctor Strange, or Wreck-It Ralph. It can even sometimes deliver multiple big moneymakers, such as in November 2015 kicking off with both The Peanuts Movie and Spectre, each of which opened to $45+ million domestically. Due Date and Megamind, meanwhile, both exceeded $30+ million over November 2010's first weekend.

Such lucrative bows were M.I.A. this year. Though Doctor Strange, Trolls, and Hacksaw Ridge all opened the Friday before Election Day 2016, Hollywood largely took the weekend before Election Day 2024 off. That left a vacant marketplace whose only real benefit was allowing holdovers to experience phenomenally good holds. The Wild Robot, Conclave, Anora, and even Venom: The Last Dance show there is a hunger for theatrical movies and a wide array of them at that. As usual, the problem is studios and streamers withholding movies like Blitz and Juror #2 that could help the marketplace tremendously.

This was a disastrous kick-off to the month and an immediate respite is not in sight. The next two weeks are also poised to be deeply quiet (sorry Red One, your terrible trailers don’t inspire confidence on you becoming a box office phenomenon) before a conceptually massive Thanksgiving 2024 frame potentially re-energizes the marketplace. If this weekend’s an indication, several October 2024 holdovers won’t have a problem sticking around long enough for that late November holiday…