Box Office Report: Welcome to the Renaissance

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | December 4, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | December 4, 2023 |

It’s been a big year for music movies, mostly thanks to Taylor Swift and her record-breaking Eras tour. Now, we have another hotly hyped concert film, albeit a very different film in the form of Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé. This past weekend, it soared to the top spot with $21 million from 2,539 theatres. That’s an impressive $8,270 per-screen average. It’s been marketed as a real Capital E Event, and this has been a strong year for such films, from Bey and Tay to Barbenheimer.

While it had a 50% drop from the previous week, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is holding on strong, especially against the likes of Wish and Napoleon, which had larger drops. Its domestic gross currently sits at over $121.2 million. Lionsgate will be very happy with that, especially since many wondered if the film could pull in fans of the original quadrilogy without its major stars and characters in tow.

We do love a giant monster movie, and Godzilla Minus One has stomped into American theatres to great acclaim. In Japan, it’s already the ninth highest-grossing film of the year, and on the other side of the Pacific, it debuted at number three with over $11 million from 2,308 theatres. Godzilla is an icon who hardly needs introduction, but the success of a Japanese movie like this is another handy reminder that international cinema has a place in American theatres, even as, in 2023, the usual suspects claim there’s no interest for it. There’s ALWAYS interest for Godzilla, dammit.

At number seven is Animal, a Hindi-language action movie starring Anil Kapoor that earned $6.14 million from 700 theatres. Again, international cinema will always have a place in US theatres!

Right behind that is The Shift, a sci-fi Christian thriller from the studio that dumped Sound of Freedom on us. Apparently, it’s a retelling of the Book of Job, only bad. Anyway, it earned $4,358,377 from 2,450 theatres. It was no Godzilla. Who’s in charge now, huh? And at number nine is the long-awaited return of everyone’s favourite slo-mo guns and doves action frenzies, John Woo. Sadly, Silent Night didn’t win over critics and it didn’t seem to get much in the way of major marketing either. That led to an opening weekend of only $3 million. Ooft.

In limited release news: The modern noir Eileen brought in $90,521 from six locations; edgy drama The Sweet East made $30,010 from only one venue; and the Isabelle Huppert political drama La Syndicaliste grossed $10,075 from one cinema.

This coming week sees a ton of Christmas-related re-releases, like Love Actually and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, as well as limited releases for Poor Things, The Boy and the Heron, and The End We Start From.

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