Jumanji: The Next Level kicked off the holiday box office with great results while Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell and Black Christmas appear to be D.O.A.
Jumanji: The Next Level opened to a stellar $59.2 million over the weekend. The sequel really hit all the right notes with moviegoers, scoring an “A-” CinemaScore and actually opening higher than the start of the first film which opened to $36.1 million over three days (the film launched on December 20 and within its five days cleared $52.7 million through Christmas Day. The Next Level has to contend with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker this weekend and it’s going to take a little bit of a hit but it should perform extremely well until after the new year and will likely justify another installment before it’s all said and done. The Next Level scored some personal bests for Sony and some of its stars which includes the biggest domestic opening for Sony in the month of December, an all-time record opening weekend for a comedy in the month of December, as well as the biggest live-action opening weekend for Kevin Hart and Jack Black, and the biggest opening weekend of all-time for director Jake Kasdan. Internationally, The Next Level got its overseas start last weekend and this weekend added 34 new markets for a total of 52, from which it brought in an estimated $85.7 million, pushing its international total to $152.5 million for a $212.6 million global take.
Dropping to second is Frozen 2 with $19 million, down 45.8%. A drop of this size was to be expected since Jumanji took some of the family audience and the film has already made a killing at the box office heading into the weekend. Frozen 2 is going to be another huge holiday player so its box office reign is far from over. The film has grossed $366.4 million to date at the domestic box office and the film’s overseas total has now grown to $666 million for a global take totaling $1.032 billion. This makes Frozen 2 Disney’s sixth $1+ billion global release of 2019 alone.
In third we have Knives Out which is still holding strong with a gross of $9.1 million. The film dropped 35.7% which is an amazing hold for the hit whodunit ensemble. The film has grossed $78.8 million to date at the domestic box office and it added another $13.6 million from 73 international markets this weekend for an overseas total that now stands at an estimated $83.3 million, for a global tally topping $162 million with releases in Germany (Jan 2) and Japan (Jan 31) still to come.
Debuting in a disappointing fourth place is Richard Jewell with $4.6 million. The film was tracking in the $10 million range so something definitely went wrong here considering Clint Eastwood can usually put the older demographic in the seats whenever he opens a film. The good news is that the film received an “A” CinemaScore but the bad news is that there doesn’t seem to be enough people interested in the film to allow it to overcome an opening this low, even during the month of December. This is also the worst opening for Clint Eastwood in nearly 40 years. There is a lot of finger-pointing going on from the subject matter not being all that interesting to the controversy that erupted before its opening regarding the portrayal of a late real-life journalist played by Olivia Wilde in the film. There are a few offerings coming up that may also appeal to older audiences so it’s possible that Richard Jewell may get lost in the shuffle.
Rounding out the top five is another under-performer in Black Christmas, the latest from Blumhouse which rarely misses the mark but seems to have big-time here. The film opened to $4.2 million after tracking in the $10-12 million range. The only thing that will stop the bleeding here is that the film cost $5 million to make so it’s going to turn some kind of profit but the narrative will be a lot of money was left on the table here. Moviegoers did not like Black Christmas it’s taking a beating on social media and received a “D+” CinemaScore which is no good for any genre but especially horror.
Check out the full top ten results below:
| Film | Total | % Change | Gross to Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onward | $10,601,952 | -72.9% | $60.3 |
| Bloodshot | $9,176,695 | NEW | $9.17 |
| I Still Believe | $9,103,614 | NEW | $9.10 |
| The Invisible Man | $5,890,805 | -61.1% | $64.3 |
| The Hunt | $5,304,455 | NEW | $5.3 |
| Sonic the Hedgehog | $2,522,584 | -67.3% | $145.7 |
| The Way Back | $2,356,115 | -71.2% | $13.3 |
| The Call of the Wild | $2,226,720 | -67.1% | $62 |
| Emma. | $1,295,215 | -73% | $9.9 |
| Bad Boys for Life | $1,102,208 | -63.5% | $204.2 |
