Venom: The Last Dance rules again in a bleak early November box office weekend

“As the stage catches fire, might as well have some fun.” This line from one of the final Anna & The Apocalypse songs was surely on the minds of moviegoers as they went to theater this weekend after this most recent Election Day. The number one movie in America in the middle of all this chaos was Venom: The Last Dance. Not since Hardball was the biggest movie in America the weekend after 9/11 has such an inexplicable movie been asked to soothe the nerves of this country's moviegoers. Easing 37%, The Last Dance grossed another $16.3 million, After 17 days of domestic play, this title has grossed $115 million.

Though it’s still significantly trailing its predecessors at the same point in North America, The Last Dance has made up some ground after a deeply disappointing opening weekend. To put things into perspective, it’s already done 2.28 times its opening weekend. This Kelly Marcel directorial effort’s also still got room to make more cash. It wouldn’t be shocking if The Last Dance rides Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving week grosses to narrowly crack $150 million in North America.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 remains the biggest domestic opening weekend of 2024 for Lionsgate. However, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever gave it a good run for its money with a decent $11.1 million bow. This adaptation of the famous children's book had an opening on par with pre-COVID Christmas titles Last Christmas and Why Him? while also surpassing the bows of most other recent Lionsgate Christian movies. Yuletide-themed family movies tend to hold really well over their domestic runs. Even something as despised as Fred Claus did 3.9 times its domestic opening weekend.

Considering that reality, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever could make a run for $50 million domestically. That would handily give it the biggest domestic gross of any Lionsgate movie in 2024, surpassing The Strangers: Chapter 1. Good lord, what a crummy year this year studio has had.

Opening to $11 million this weekend was Heretic. When box office actuals come in, it may just surpassed The Best Christmas Pageant Ever to become the weekend’s biggest new release. That’s 6% ahead of the opening of fellow A24 horror movie Talk to Me from last year. While not a breakout hit, that’s also not too shabby for an indie horror movie. Heretic was constricted by a deluge of horror movie competition in October and a slightly more complex premise than, say, Talk to Me. Still, striking promotional materials and the promise of Hugh Grant getting his menacing freak on was enough to garner a solid bow. Solid day-to-day holds throughout the weekend.

Another weekend, another impressive hold for The Wild Robot. This weekend, it took in $6.6 million, a tiny 11% dip from last weekend. This project's now taken in $130.8 million domestically. If Wicked and Moana 2 don't wipe it out at the end of the month, The Wild Robot could eyeball a domestic total just above $150 million. Smile 2 had another impressive hold this weekend despite the arrival of another new horror movie in the marketplace. Falling 27%, it grossed another $4.9 million for a $60.4 million domestic total.  Conclave continued its terrific domestic run with another $4 million this weekend. Easing just 20%, it's now grossed $21.4 million. after 17 days of North American play. Looks like this one should be able to hold onto its screens through Thanksgiving. If that happens, Conclave's domestic total could really reach some interesting heights.

Anora reached the seventh spot at the domestic box office this weekend. That makes it the only title in the top ten playing in under 1,500 theaters. Grossing $2.45 million this frame from 1,104 theaters, Anora had a $2,224 per theater average in its first wide release frame. That's roughly on par with the $2.59 million wide release opening weekend Parasite scored back in November 2019, though it was playing in 600 fewer theaters. Anora has so far pulled in a strong $7.2 million.

In its second frame, Here dropped 50% for another $2.42 million. That's not a steep plummet, but it's still not a good hold for a movie that underperformed so drastically on opening weekend. Domestically, Here has grossed only $9.5 million. We Live in Time, meanwhile, had another terrific hold dipping 36% in its fourth weekend of wide release. Grossing another $2.2 million, it's now taken in $21.8 million domestically. Rounding out the top ten was Terrifier 3 with $1.3 million. Art the Clown's newest adventure has grossed $53.3 million in North America.

A quartet of further wide release newcomers dropped this weekend and none left much of an impression. The Anthony Mackie feature Elevation flopped with just $1.18 million at 1,416 theaters. Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom at least did decently for its limited theater count as it grossed $1.1 million from just 621 locations. We'll get to the worst of this weekend's new wide releases momentarily. Hint: it came from Ketchup Entertainment.

Another weekend, another Roadside Attractions release that just went nowhere at the box office. Small Things Like These opened in 799 locations, yet neither that extensive theater count nor the presence of recent Oscar winner Cillian Murphy could give it a box office boost. It grossed just $585,000 this weekend for a $732 per theater average. Deadline reported on Saturday that the latest Ketchup Entertainment wide release boondoggle, Weekend in Taipei, was on track to gross just $360,000 from 1,021 locations. That dismal bow is one of the year’s worst wide release debuts.

In its second weekend, A Real Pain expanded to 12 locations and grossed a fantastic $282,000 for a $23,000 per theater average. This one's holding incredibly nicely. Now let's see how it does when it expands to 1,100+ theaters on Friday. Memoir of a Snail had a much less graceful expansion into more theaters as it grossed just $201,000 from 467 theaters for a $430 per theater average. This animated feature has grossed $374,848 domestically. Christmas Eve in Miller's Point, meanwhile, opened in 405 theaters and grossed a dismal $73,500 for a per theater average of only $181.

Andrea Arnold's Bird debuted at a single theater this weekend and grossed $24,104. Dahomey, in its third weekend, lost three theaters and eased 48% to gross another $8,028. After 17 days of domestic play, it's grossed $70,797.

This weekend’s top ten movies grossed an anemic $60 million. That's two consecutive weekends in a row where the weekend domestic box office fell beneath $65 million, a gravely frustrating streak. Since September 13-15, only one domestic weekend (October 2024's final frame when The Last Dance premiered) has seen the top ten movies clear $85 million. Red One next weekend will bolster the box office a tad, but it's really all down to Wicked, Gladiator II, and Moana 2 to salvage this month. The bad news is, beyond those three titles, the Thanksgiving 2024 box office won’t have a ton to offer.

A shallow pool of new releases will still be plaguing the marketplace given that only three* new motion pictures will debut between November 22 and 27. Arthouse breakout hits like A Real Pain, Anora, and Conclave shouldn’t be expected to carry the burden of compensating for the dearth of new releases. It’s clear now movie theater owners will have to wait until 2025 for a steadier stream of new theatrical movies and even then, fresh projects could still be hard to come by. If studios want the box office to get back to pre-COVID levels, you have to put out new movies and a wide variety of them. I’ll just keep saying it every weekend until that changes!

* = Yes, Angel Studios is dropping Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin on November 22 but is anyone even aware that movie's happening?