Box Office Report: War! What Is It Good For?

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | January 12, 2020 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | January 12, 2020 |

The Oscar nominations drop tomorrow and hoo boy are Film Twitter tensions high… Don’t worry, the agony will be over soon. OK, that’s a lie because the pain never ends, but still! This weekend, we saw how the Golden Globes numbers made an impact on the box office. As Sam Mendes’s 1917 expanded to over 3,400 theaters, it managed to snag the top spot with a surprisingly high weekend gross of $36.5 million. Clearly, audiences were intrigued by its clever marketing campaign and awards success. It helps that this is definitely the kind of movie that requires the full big-screen experience. Audiences really loved this one too. It does have that ‘audience and Academy consensus’ feeling about it, akin to Ford v Ferrari but with Roger Deakins showing off more.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker fell to the second spot with a gross of $15.05 million, bringing its domestic gross to around $478.1 million. With $989 million in the bank so far, it’s only a day or so away from becoming Disney’s seventh release of 2019 to take in over a billion dollars. Jumanji: The Next Level has held on strong too, bringing in $257.1 million domestically so far. It won’t reach the heights of the first movie but Sony will be happy to have another successful franchise in their corner.

Debuting at number four is Like a Boss, which brought in $10 million, around the same amount as Just Mercy, which expanded into over 2,300 theaters this weekend. That’s not great for the former but the latter could continue to play well in a dry month for releases (if you’re interested in more details about why January is a dumping ground for movies, you can read my piece!)

Fox didn’t fare so well with Underwater, starring Kristen Stewart, which only managed to bring in $7 million. Audiences didn’t care much for it and it’s doubtful that Disney will prioritize the title in any way.

Watch out for the coming weekend in terms of box office changes. There are a couple of big releases on the horizon but the real action will be in how the Oscar nominations will impact things and what movies the studios will try to rush into wider release should the results be in their favor. We can already see some of the results at play, such as Neon putting Parasite in an extra 123 theaters this weekend. Will we see A24 do the same if Uncut Gems performs well? How about Fox Searchlight and Jojo Rabbit? Joker has disappeared from the chart but don’t be shocked if Warner Bros. starts doing ‘special screenings’ or something.

This coming weekend sees the release of Dolittle and Bad Boys for Life. Hurray?

You can check out the rest of the box office results here.

What films did you watch this weekend? Let us know in the comments.