Box Office Report: One Time Warp After Another

One Battle After Another is the latest film by Paul Thomas Anderson, a director who has described himself as being ‘box office challenged.’ He makes masterpieces that don’t break the bank. With his latest, he’s gotten the highest budget of his career — reportedly somewhere between $130 and $175 million — and one of the biggest stars — Leonardo DiCaprio. The reviews have been stellar. Audiences turned out for it too, and the movie hit the top spot with $22.4 million from 2,634 locations. The trades have been concerned about how big a commercial flop this’ll be for Warner Bros., given how much it needs to break even, but come on. Let’s just celebrate the existence of a PTA drama with a big honking left-wing message at its heart. Suck it, Zaslav.

Gabby’s Dollhouse is a kids’ TV series from the creators of Blue’s Clues about a girl and her cats who go on adventures inside her dollhouse. Apparently, it’s a massive hit, big enough to have received a balloon at last year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. It’s now a movie too, with Kristen Wiig in the villain role and Jason Mantzoukas voicing a cat. I imagine parents weren’t keen to take their kids to the new Anderson film — too many Sean Penn scenes — so this one did pretty well, with $13.7 million in the bank from 3,500 cinemas.

The surprisingly expansive The Strangers franchise is now into Chapter 2 of its latest trilogy. We like scary stuff, but this one opened to a soft $5.9 million. That put it squarely between The Conjuring: Last Rites ($161.4 million in four weeks) and Him ($20.7 million in a fortnight.)

Sam Raimi made two of the best superhero movies ever, and also Spider-Man 3. They got a trilogy re-release and brought in over $2.25 million from 1,485 locations. The second one of the best. Doc Ock forever.

Dead of Winter is an action thriller starring Emma Thompson. It earned over $1 million from 605 cinemas. One spot behind it at number 12 is Eleanor the Great, the directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson and a rare leading role for the iconic June Squibb. Sony Pictures Classics is pushing this one hard as a potential Best Actress competitor, but reviews have been fair to middling and audiences don’t seem too keen. It’s a hard sell of a movie whose advertising doesn’t quite convey what it’s actually about, in fairness. It’s earned $935,577 from 892 places.

I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey. The Rocky Horror Picture Show turned 50 this year and remains the king of the midnight movies. To celebrate its birthday, it got another re-release, which brought in $135,000 from 112 haunted castles. Released alongside it was Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, a documentary on its creation and influence. That one took in $40,850. Please do the time warp in celebration.

This coming week sees the release of The Smashing Machine, starring Dwayne Johnson, and the horror film Bone Lake.

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