Traditionally, the first weekend in January is a pretty boring time for the box office. If we’re lucky, there’s a horror film that surprises everyone and does great business. However, by and large, what we’re left with are holiday holdovers trying to scrape together the most post-Christmas money before families go back to work and kids go back to school. So, it shouldn’t be any real shock that this weekend was pretty boring, especially when our lone hope for shaking things up — “The Grudge” — failed in spectacular fashion.
The weekend’s lone wide debut, director Nicolas Pesce’s horror remake/reboot/sequel “The Grudge” hit theaters and apparently, scared away potential audiences (HEY OH!), earning a paltry $11.3 million. That put the film all the way down in the #4 spot, domestically (depending on the “actual” results, the film could drop to #5). But even though many people had high hopes for “The Grudge” thanks to the previous films from Pesce, it would appear that no one was impressed, as the reviews were terrible (18% on Rotten Tomatoes) and Friday night audience members hated it (‘F’ CinemaScore).
We’re not going to waste too much time on what this means, as the ‘F’ CinemaScore (last seen in 2017 with “mother!” and only given to 20 films previously) pretty much ensures that “The Grudge” will disappear from theaters pretty quickly. Needless to say, this isn’t the breakout horror hit that some might have predicted and a terrible bump in the road for Pesce. Hopefully, thanks to the quality of his previous films “Piercing” and “The Eyes of My Mother,” the filmmaker can rebound.
Once again, for the third weekend in a row, “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” took the box office crown. However, the Disney/Lucasfilm release is beginning to show signs of wear and tear, as the #1 showing isn’t nearly as dominant as it probably should have been. Earning only $33.7 million in its third weekend, ‘Rise’ is falling further behind the previous two “Star Wars” episodes and barely beat the #2 film, “Jumanji: The Next Level” ($26.3 million, in its fourth weekend).
There’s a lot to go into with ‘Rise,’ but honestly, for the sake of those not interested in how much money Disney is going to make with the film, we’ll talk about that in another piece. (Keep an eye out for that later today.) Short version — “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is going to make money, but not nearly as much as the Mouse House hoped and not nearly enough to prove that Lucasfilm has positive momentum going into the next phase of the franchise.
If we want to look at the non-“Star Wars” success stories of the weekend, you can’t help but notice that Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” is starting to show signs of a film that is going to exceed all expectations, earning another $13.6 million. After two weekends, the film currently stands at an estimated $60 million and surely looks like it’s going to end up right around $100 million or more. That’s great news for Sony and the filmmaker, proving that a well-made, well-acted film doesn’t need lightsabers or The Rock to sell tickets this time of year. Maybe this attention will mean that some male Oscar voters will give the film a shot?
Another success story is the Safdie Brothers’ latest film, “Uncut Gems.” Last weekend, we said that “Uncut Gems” had the biggest debut for an A24 film and even with a C+ CinemaScore, the film continued to do well in its second weekend, earning another $8 million and putting its domestic total at $37 million. It’s clear that “Uncut Gems” will likely beat A24’s own “Hereditary” for the second spot on the distributor’s all-time list. In fact, if the film has another strong weekend, we could be looking at the Safdies’ film beating the all-time A24 champion “Lady Bird.” This is great news for a film that is hoping to score several Oscar nominations.
Next weekend, there definitely will be some interesting debuts, as “1917” (fresh off its incredible Golden Globe victories), “Just Mercy,” “Like a Boss,” and “Underwater” all hit theaters. Mendes’ war film is probably going to take the top spot, but it’ll be interesting to see how “Star Wars” fares when given some new competition.
Here’s the full domestic top 10 for January 3 to January 5:
1. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – $34M ($450M Overall)
2. Jumanji: The Next Level – $26M ($236M)
3. Little Women – $14M ($60M)
4. The Grudge – $11.3M (Debut)
5. Frozen II – $11.29M ($450M)
6. Spies in Disguise – $10M ($47M)
7. Knives Out – $9M ($130M)
8. Uncut Gems – $8M ($37M)
9. Bombshell – $4M ($24.5M)
10. Cats – $2.6M ($24.7M)