Although Black Panther: Wakanda Forever remains number one at the box office for the second week in a row, the other films released around the same time have not been able to draw a crowd. While Thanksgiving weekend is normally when families go to the theater to catch up on the latest releases, this Thanksgiving proved to be underwhelming.
The three-day Thanksgiving box office weekend came to $95 million, according to IndieWire. When compared to 2019’s weekend total of $181 million and 2018’s $216 million, falling short of $100 million is pretty concerning for the film industry and movie theaters.
'Strange World'Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Disney is currently dominating the theaters with Black Panther bringing in half of the weekend's take with $46 million, but Disney’s original animated feature, Strange World, tanked at the box office. The film yielded less than $19 million over five days on a budget reportedly coming in at $130 to $180 million.
The market expense might exceed its ultimate domestic take with the holiday streaming season gearing up, but, for now, Strange World bombed.
Theaters could have seen a spike in their box office if Netflix had done a wide release for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, but Netflix hasn’t publicly released any grosses. Indiewire suggests that the film’s limited release brought in $9.2 million for three days, making the film’s box office take around $13 million.
Unfortunately, Netflix doesn’t plan on making any wide theatrical releases anytime soon for their projects as it goes against their company’s movie-watching morals.
Two other films this weekend were disappointed by the turnout, with Sony’s independently produced Korean War drama Devotiongrossing 10% of its $90 million budget. Black Adam is still performing well, coming in at number six. It currently has made $163 million domestically. The satirical comedy, The Menu, still brought in $5.2 million.
'The Menu'Credit: Searchlight Pictures
Thanksgiving at the box office was not one to celebrate. Instead, we should be slightly concerned about the future of movie theater culture. I strongly believe that you should go to the theater if you’re able to watch a movie that piques your interest. If you can’t spend the $15 for a movie ticket, your local theater might have deals on Tuesdays that give you a heavily discounted ticket.
Hopefully, December will bring more viewers to the theaters. James Cameron’s highly anticipatedAvatar: The Way of Wateropens Dec. 16. But we need to remember that one massive hit like Top Gun: Maverickwill not save movie theaters during their troubling times.
What movie are you looking forward to seeing in theaters? Let us know in the comments!
Source: IndieWire
