Wednesday estimates are in and the same three films are dominating the holiday box office while a couple of films crossed some significant milestones.
We’ll get to Star Wars in a second but Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle grossed an estimated $15.1 million on Wednesday and brings its domestic total to $104.2 million. The film has already surpassed the 1995 original which topped out at $100 million after 17 weekends of release. There is still a lot more money to be made here and $200 million is definitely in its sights. Jumanji is the 30th film this year to cross the $100 million mark and was beat to the title by Daddy’s Home 2 which crossed the milestone on Tuesday. Although it didn’t come close to the $150.1 million that the original grossed, this is still a win for the sequel as it legged out through November until the end of December as the comedy choice of the holiday season. Murder on the Orient Express, which opened the same weekend as Daddy’s Home 2, is about $200,000 shy of the milestone and although it shed many screens in the past week, it should become the 31st film of the year to hit $100 million. In a box office climate where films open to this number, I’m still ok with calling a $100 million final gross a win for any film if it’s relative to the film’s budget.
Star Wars, surprise-surprise, is still the top film with a Wednesday gross of $21.5 million. The domestic total is now at $444.9 million and it will likely top Beauty and The Beast as the highest grossing film of 2017 sometime over the weekend. Beast grossed $504 million by the end of its run and Star Wars just needs $59.1 million to top it.
Pitch Perfect 3 dipped from its Tuesday numbers but was still solid with $6.4 million. The domestic gross is at $40.3 million and it will continue to do solid business with its target audience out of school. The Greatest Showman also saw a Tuesday to Wednesday dip with an estimated $4.6 million. The film has grossed $28.7 million to date and the upcoming weekend will go a long way to seeing how its long-term prospects shape up.
Check back tomorrow as we see how the holiday box office heats up heading into the weekend!
