As usual, the weekend box office went into hibernation with the New Year. ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ dipped, but relatively speaking still did well enough, earning $33.7 million. The #2 movie was ‘Jumanji: The Next Level’, which earned $26.5M. In comparison, one year ago, ‘Aquaman’ was at #1 with $30.7M, with the #2 movie, ‘Escape Room’ only taking in $18M, so this weekend was busier than that. However, this is lower than the same weekend two years ago, when the previous ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Jumanji’ movies were at the top of the box office. But things were flip-flopped, with ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ on top with $36M, and ‘The Last Jedi’ earning $29.3M. So things are about even, just with the positions reversed. In that case, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ opened after ‘The Last Jedi’, while ‘The Next Level’ opened ahead of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’.
‘The Rise of Skywalker’s global gross is now $919M, meaning it will likely cross the billion-dollar mark soon. Since it came out in 2019, it will be Disney’s seventh movie from last year to hit that milestone.
The new release of the week, the reboot of ‘The Grudge’, appears to be a real stinker. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is an abysmal 16%, but more damning is the audience reaction. Usually, regular viewers are easier on movies, particularly if they are niche genre pics, but they gave ‘The Grudge’ a rare F CinemaScore, and ½ a star out of five.
It arrives in fourth place, taking in $11.3M. It appears that the general consensus is that it was too soon for a reboot after the first three movies were released in 2004, ’06, and ’08. Plus, it apparently just plain sucks. (I haven’t seen it and most likely never will.)
Elsewhere on the chart, ‘Little Women’ continues to do well, at #3 with $13.5M, while ‘Frozen 2’ hangs in at #5 with $11.29M. ‘Frozen 2’s international gross is now at $875.3M, making it the highest-grossing animated film of all time.
TOP FIVE
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Disney) – $33.7M
- Jumanji: The Next Level (Sony) – $26.5M
- Little Women (Sony) – $13.5M
- The Grudge (Sony) – $11.3M
- Frozen 2 (Disney) – $11.29M
Next week, critically acclaimed dramas ‘1917’ and ‘Just Mercy’ expand to wide release after opening in limited release last month in order to qualify for awards season. Also opening is the comedy ‘Like a Boss’ starring Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne, and Salma Hayek, low-budget thriller ‘Underwater’, and ‘The Informer’, another action flick made for the foreign market, but which could draw a few Americans to the theater.
Check back to see how they do and if any of them can take down ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’.
Source: Deadline
