Box Office: 'Night Swim' Tops Friday With $5.2 Million But 'The Color Purple' Sinks

'Wonka' will win the weekend with $15 million as 'Anyone But You' holds like a champ

The first January in which I lived in the Los Angeles area was 2005, and I took a first date to a horror flick called White Noise. Even then, it was frankly unusual to see Michael Keaton in a lead role, which partially explained the mediocre “Hollywood tries Asian horror” film’s whopping $25 million debut weekend (remember when folks went to the movies?). I did not realize it at the time, but I was witnessing the birth of a semi-formal trend, by which the first weekend of the new year would kick off with a schlocky horror flick. Some were better (Hostel, Daybreakers, Underworld: Blood Wars, Insidious: The Last Key, Escape Room, M3gan) than most (One Missed Call, The Unborn, Season of the Witch, The Devil Inside, Texas Chainsaw 3-D, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, The Woman in Black 2, The Forrest, The Grudge), but all acted as a kind of palette cleanser after the slew of big-deal holiday releases and very important awards season flicks.  

This year’s offering is Bryce McGuire’s Night Swim, which is a team-up between Jason Blum’s Blumhouse and James Wan’s Atomic Monster right as their respective companies have finalized their genre-conquering merger. Some moments of tension and haunting way-underwater imagery notwithstanding, it sadly belongs in the One Missed Call box. Still, unlike The Devil Inside (whose finale cut to black mid-action and told viewers to hop onto a website for more information), the climax will not have audiences shouting, cursing and throwing stuff at the screen, and how I wish I could have been there for those midnight screenings in 2012. Anyway, it topped the Friday box office with $5.22 million. It will earn around $12.5 million for the weekend, good for second place against Wonka ($4.26 million on Friday, around $15 million for the Fri-Sun frame) and fine for a poorly reviewed (27% on Rotten Tomatoes) and poorly received (a C from CinemaScore) $15 million fright flick. Horror is still the most reliable theatrical genre around. 

The next frame is Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend and thus (per usual) jam-packed with newbies, in this case The Beekeeper (seeing it tonight with my 12-year-old in the hopes of getting him hooked on grindhouse action), Mean Girls (seeing it with my 16-year-old next week since she saw the play), The Book of Clarence (seeing that one by myself, alas) and Disney’s theatrical re-issuing of Soul (definitely catching that one on the big screen as intended with whoever wants to come). But this current frame is otherwise bereft of newbies other than Night Swim, so the rest of the news is holdover news. Wonka earned $4.3 million (-50%) on Friday for a likely $15 million (-33%) fourth weekend and $165 million 24-day cume. It’s holding better than Jumanji: The Next Level which had 4x its $59 million debut after its fourth weekend. Wonka is at 4.2x and holding firm, which means it’s almost certain to pass $200 million domestic (if not $225 million) by the end.  

Universal and Illumination’s Migration earned another $2.95 million (-56%) on Friday for a likely $10.5 million (-38%) weekend and $78 million 17-day total. That’s a better third-weekend hold than Sing 2 (-42%) but not as strong as Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’s shockingly long legs (-19%) last year. It should still join Universal and DreamWorks’ Trolls Band Together in the $100 million-plus club. Warner Bros. Discovery’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom earned $3.1 million (-54%) on its third Friday, setting the stage for a likely $10.5 million (-42%) weekend and over/under $100 million 17-day cume. It should be past $315 million worldwide by tomorrow, for what that’s worth. Sony’s Anyone But You earned another $3.25 million (-2%) on Friday for a likely $10.3 million (+17%) weekend and $44.5 million 17-day total. The Glen Powell/Sydney Sweeney rom-com will earn more money in its third Fri-Sun frame than in its first or second, a huge win that implies that grown-ups are hiring babysitters and playing catch-up. 

Amazon MGM’s The Boys in the Boat earned $1.785 million (-35%) on Friday for a likely $5.69 million (-32%) weekend and $33.6 million cume. Not a blow-out for this $40 million, George Clooney-directed underdog sports flick, but the math is a little different for these “marketing for the streaming launch” theatrical releases. Alas, Warner Bros. Discovery’s The Color Purple is falling fast, having earned $1.97 million (-62%) on Friday for a likely $4.46 million (-62%) weekend and $54.32 million 14-day cume after a near-record $18 million Christmas Day launch. It’s legging like not Fences or Sherlock Holmes but rather like Alien vs. Predator: Requiem and heading toward a likely $65 million domestic finish unless it ends up in the Oscar race. That would be fine, and it’s a higher domestic total than the other “big movies for adults” offerings in play now (including Napoleon), but it cost $100 million with questionable overseas prospects. Still, if Hollywood can keep rolling the dice on films like Ferrari...  

A24’s The Iron Claw will earn $4.1 million (-10%) on weekend three for a terrific $24 million domestic cume, while NEON’s Ferrari will earn $2.46 million (-37%) for a miserable $16 million domestic cume. NEON is only on the hook for domestic expenses related to the $90 million flick, but this still means Michael Mann hasn’t had a genuine “profitable in theaters” hit since Tom Cruise’s Collateral 20 years ago. Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will earn $1.92 million (-33%) in weekend eight for a $164 million domestic cume as it slowly becomes the leggiest pre-Thanksgiving YA title ever (past even the first Harry Potter and Frozen II) following a soft-ish $45 million debut. Searchlight’s Poor Things will earn $1.82 million (-20%) for a $14 million cume. Hopefully, this delightful Emma Stone-starring comedy will stick around amid the Oscar race. Ditto Amazon MGM’s American Fiction as the Jeffrey Wright vehicle earns $1.04 million (+153% as it expands to 114 theaters) for a $3 million cume.