Box Office Report: Buzz Off

It still feels too soon for a new Mean Girls movie. Yes, I know this one is a musical and it’s technically adapted from the stage adaptation of the film (which is adapted from a book), but come on, 2004 only just happened! Paramount didn’t exactly lean into advertising this one as a musical, which led to some TikTokers getting a shock once the singing and dancing started. Still, it’s January, the brand name is strong, and the mixed reviews still contained a few ardent cheerleaders for the work. That meant that Mean Girls rose to the top of the box office this MLK Day Weekend with $33.2 million from 3,791 theatres.

Is there a more January movie release than a Jason Statham action movie involving bees? The only thing that could make it more fitting for a Dump Month title is if Gerard Butler were in it and got to punch some of the bees. The Beekeeper received surprisingly decent reviews, and debuted at number two at this weekend’s box office with $19 million from 3,303 theatres. Sometimes, you just need a schlocky action film for the cold dark beginning of a new year.

It certainly did better than the weekend’s other major release, The Book of Clarence. The biblical satire only scraped to number eight, putting it behind The Boys in the Boat and Night Swim. It brought in a mere $3 million from 2,010 locations. Reviews and buzz just weren’t there. See, buzz is a good pun here because of the bees and oh, forget it.

There wasn’t much in the way of a post-Golden Globes bump for the awards contenders. The biggest winner of that ceremony was a Summer movie, Oppenheimer, which is now available on DVD and is doing gangbusters for physical sales. But it’s still playing in over 139 cinemas, and it earned $327,000 this past weekend. That brings its domestic gross to *deep breath* $326,434,905 after 26 weeks.

Poor Things only had an 8.4% drop from the previous weekend, although it’s still playing in less than 600 theatres. I’m not sure Searchlight is rushing to open this thing wide until there’s a real hunger for it. Ferrari fell a sharp 76.8% in its third week, while Warner Bros. cut the theatre numbers for The Color Purple by over 2,000.

An unexpected title in play this past weekend is Soul, the Oscar-winning Pixar film. It was put into 1,350 theatres and grossed $429,000. The movie never received a theatrical release in the US because of COVID-19. Pete Docter, Pixar’s creative chief officer, announced last year that the company would offer cinema releases to those movies that the lockdown hindered, so if you really wanted to see Luca or Turning Red on the big screen, you will get the chance. The slow-burn box office success of Elemental seems to be partly the inspiration for the decision, but it’s also good for Disney to undo having trained audiences to see their films as at-home viewing experiences.

In limited release news: French dramedy Driving Madeleine made $24,026 from six locations, and Jordanian drama Inshallah a Boy earned $6,000 from one place.

This coming week sees the release of Ava DuVernay’s ambitious drama Origin and the space thriller I.S.S.

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