Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opened some lucrative box office gifts on Christmas Day as it continues to dominate heading into the weekend.
The Rise of Skywalker grossed $32 million on Christmas Day. This is the second-best Christmas Day showing behind 2015’s holiday record, The Force Awakens, which made $49.3 million. Skywalker also beats the Christmas Day grosses of The Last Jedi ($27.4 million) and Rogue One ($25.8 million) which have the third and fourth-best daily totals for the holiday. The current domestic total for The Rise of Skywalker is now at $258.8 million, 7% behind the pace of The Last Jedi at the same period of time but keep in mind that this latest film opened lower but is making up big time with daily grosses that have exceeded its predecessor.
Jumanji: The Next Level continued to be the second-best choice for families at the box office with a gross of $12.55 million on Christmas Day. The Sony sequel now has a domestic total of $128.9 million to date. Much like it was when Welcome to the Jungle was released around the same period of The Last Jedi, Jumanji and Star Wars seem to be the kings of the Christmas box office.
Sony also earns the third-place slot with the opening of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women which opened to $6.4 million, without the benefit of Christmas Eve previews. Little Women‘s Christmas Day opening easily conquers the Christmas opening day of the 1994 Winona Ryder-Susan Sarandon-Kirsten Dunst-Claire Danes version which posted $2.2 million.
In fourth we have another impressive opening in Adam Sandler’s Uncut Gems which grossed $5.9 million on Christmas Day. This isn’t your typical Christmas Day film so this opening should be viewed as quite impressive. For A24, this is the most ever made for the Gotham-based indie distributor in a single day.
Rounding out the top five for Christmas Day is Spies in Disguise which grossed $4.8 million. It’s about $200,000 shy of where predictions had it opening for the day but this is still solid as families may discover it more through the weekend and heading into the new year.
In other box office news for Christmas, Knives Out grossed $4.5 million, up 169% from its Christmas Eve showing which brings its domestic total to $97.5 million and that closer to joining the $100 million club. Frozen 2 took in $4.1 million on Christmas Day and brought its domestic total to $399.2 million. Frozen 2 will have to open up its $400 million Christmas present a day late for Disney.
Since I don’t want to entirely trash on Cats, I’ll post up some good news that the film was up 97% from Christmas Eve to $2.3 million yesterday. Its domestic total sits at a still dismal $11.3 million. Bombshell also saw an uptick, grossing $2.3 million as well, up 162% from Christmas Eve. The film has a running total of $9.6 million.
In limited release on Christmas Day, Universal/DreamWorks’ WWI Sam Mendes feature 1917 grossed $251,000 at 11 theaters in LA, NYC, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, DC and Toronto for $22,800 per theater. Joining 1917 in limited release on Christmas Day was Warner Bros.’s social justice drama Just Mercy starring Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, and Brie Larson. That film grossed $81,000 at four NY and LA sites and it scored an “A+” CinemaScores among all major demos including females (63%) and males (37%), and 25+ (89%) and under 25 (11%).
