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Poor Things Premiere Getty.jpg

Box Office Report: Big Buzz

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | January 29, 2024 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | January 29, 2024 |


Poor Things Premiere Getty.jpg

It was the week of the Oscar nominations, which meant that most of the interesting developments at the box office were related to those that received nods but had been in theatres for a while. There were no new wide releases because it’s late January, and studios know when they’re beaten.

What this led to was a surprise win for Jason Statham, as his action-thriller The Beekeeper jumped into the top spot in its third week of release. It’s been a slow burn in a slow month, but it is a nice reminder that it is possible to do decent business in the ‘dump season.’ I doubt we’ll see many studios lean further into the early year because it’s not a limitless profit opportunity, but if you put something people want to see in theatres, they will come. Well, weather-dependent, and also that American football thing is on right now, and people seem to like that.

We can also see those slow-burn numbers with other late-December/early-January releases. DreamWorks animation Migration opened soft over Christmas but is hanging on and has surpassed $100 million domestic in its sixth week. For comparison, Disney’s mega-flop Wish has yet to cross $64 million in ten weeks of release. Rom-com Anyone But You has also done well with word-of-mouth, only dropping 11.1% in its sixth week of release.

The Best Picture nominees this season got that expected box office boost: American Fiction had a 65% increase in attendance; Poor Things got a 43% one; The Zone of Interest waited until it got that Best Picture nod to open in an extra 235 theatres, which proved to be a smart move as its made over $1 million this last weekend. Oppenheimer has been in cinemas for 28 weeks, playing gangbusters and doing especially well in IMAX, and now has a domestic gross of $328.1 million.

Paul Giamatti’s The Holdovers got a huge bump of 567.5% as Focus pushed it into a fully wide release of over 1,200 theatres. Anatomy of a Fall was pushed into an extra 355 theatres and got a 440% boost. The biggest increase from the previous week went to Killers of the Flower Moon. Even though it’s already available on Apple TV+, Paramount revived the movie’s theatrical release to bank on its Oscar numbers. That meant an attendance boost of 3,816%!

There were some indie releases this weekend: Daisy Ridley’s Sometimes I Think About Dying grossed $40,460 from two locations; animated drama The Peasants earned $15,180 from one cinema; drama Totem brought in $11,402 from one venue; and hitman drama American Star, starring Ian McShane, made $9,001 from 47 theatres.

This coming week sees the release of spy action comedy Argylle, a movie that was not written by Taylor Swift.

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