Box Office: ‘Wonka’ Tops $250M as ‘Migration’ Flies to $12M and ‘Iron Claw’ Nabs $5M

The Glen Powell/Sydney Sweeney rom-com 'Anyone But You' will have $9 million by Christmas as 'Napoleon' nears $200 million worldwide

While I don’t want to fall back into the pattern of writing a gazillion different posts for each weekend’s box office news, this jam-packed Christmas weekend is (for once!) just too damn crowded. Forgive me, but this one will be everything that isn’t the miserable $28.1 million Fri-Sun debut of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.  

Universal and Illumination’s Migration earned $12.3 million over the Fri-Sun portion of what will likely be a $17 million Fri-Mon holiday launch. The visually impressive and amusingly genre-riffing (it’s arguably a kid-friendly and not-very-scary horror film) is the animation giant’s first original toon since Sing (which opened with $55 million over a Wed-Sun debut) in 2016. This also means this is the first time they will be dealing with the overall downturn for original, non-IP animation that has been in play since 2018. Pixar’s Coco was the last original animated blockbuster, earning $800 million worldwide in late 2017. However, from late 2018 to early 2023, Illumination has since offered adaptations of The Grinch and Super Mario Bros. alongside sequels to Minions, The Secret Life of Pets and Sing (with Despicable Me 4 opening next summer).  

That Migration earned/will earn less in its first four days than Sing earned in its first Wed/Sun frame isn’t a shock. Sing also had an easy elevator pitch and buzzy movie stars like Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson singing pop tunes. It’s a “Let’s put on a show!” plot so nice Hollywood remade it not once (The Greatest Showman) but twice (Magic Mike’s Last Dance). However, Migration has earned solid reviews (69% fresh and 6.2/10 on Rotten Tomatoes) plus an A from CinemaScore. It’s the last *new* kid-friendly animated feature – all due respect to Disney putting Soul, Luca and Turning Red back into theaters early next year – until Kung Fu Panda 4 in mid-March of 2024. Moreover, Universal’s last two Christmas toons were leggy as hell even with that infamous short theatrical window.  

Illumination’s Sing 2 earned $167 million in December of 2021 after a $40 million Wed-Sun debut while DreamWorks Animation’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish earned $183 million last year after a $26 million Wed-Mon launch. Even with Wonka as kiddie competition, a long road past $100 million domestically wouldn’t shock me. And since this flick cost just $72 million to produce, with Comcast still having healthy post-theatrical revenue streams compared to some of its competitors, even a final total on par with Wish ($144 million and almost done) wouldn’t be that bad. Still, with holiday legs and the aforementioned factors, well, $215 million global is the goal. Once again, Universal is and has been the industry leader in theatrical animation since 2020. I hope all the Disney+ subscribers were worth it.  

Sony’s Anyone But You earned $6.235 million amid a Fri-Sun portion of what could be a $9 million Fri-Mon holiday debut. That’s not great, but it’s not bad for an original, R-rated romantic comedy starring two “new” stars (Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney). The loose riff on Much Ado About Nothing is inexplicably lousy, and that’s coming from a big Will Gluck fan. It’s the Wish of rom-coms. It features the raw elements associated with the genre and doesn’t bother to cook or season any of them, expecting the audience to be thankful for their mere presence. That said, it has its fans, and it’s also the kind of counterprogramming that – at least in pre-Covid times - legged out over the holiday and ended up with five or six times its respective opening weekend.  

A B+ from Cinemascore is promising, and lord knows the romantic comedy — and comedies in general — could use a win. Hollywood certainly tried this year, with (among others) Joy Ride, Strays and No Hard Feelings, but those wanting big-screen laughs either flocked to “funny” franchise flicks like TMNT: Mutant Mayhem and Scream VI or Barbie. The $25 million flick was a co-pro between Columbia, SK Global Entertainment and TSG Entertainment, so I’d imagine even halfway decent holiday legs (Jennifer Lopez’s Second Act earned $39 million from a $6.5 million debut in 2018) will put this one in the black before post-theatrical revenues. But with Netflix flourishing in this space since 2018 (Set It Up, The Kissing Booth, Always Be My Maybe, Do Revenge, etc.), Hollywood has to do better than Anyone But You. 

We had two Indian tentpoles opening this weekend: Tollywood’s Salaar: Part 1 (a sprawling, violent, politically skewing actioner from K.F.G. director Prashanth Neel) and Bollywood’s Dunki (the third biggie headlined by mega-star Shah Rukh Khan in 2023 following Pathaan and Jawan). However, the genre flick far outearned the immigration dramedy. Saalaar: Part 1 nabbed a $5.5 million Fri-Sun/$7 million Fri-Mon debut in just 750 theaters. Dunki earned a $2.54 million Fri-Sun/$3.6 million Fri-Mon gross, giving it $4.5 million since Thursday. Alas, poor SRK will have to settle for only having the two biggest-earning Bollywood movies ever both opening in a single year, instead of going 3-for-3 on that score. The two Indian epics added a combined $10.6 million to the Fri-Mon domestic box office. Once again, all hail the demographically specific event movie. 

A24’s The Iron Claw earned a $5.06 million Fri-Sun/$7.5 million Fri-Mon debut. Sean Durkin’s melodrama about the trials and tribulations of the Von Erich family is such a “feel-bad movie of Christmas” that I'm shocked Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lion, Carol, Women Talking) didn’t show up. Jokes aside, the Zac Efron-starring wrestling biopic/family melodrama is exactly the kind of movie that we should be talking about when we discuss whether Hollywood makes mainstream movies for and about regular Americans (sans the political dog whistle, natch). If it slightly overperforms this month — relative to its $16 million budget and expectations — that will be partially why. Finally, Searchlight’s All of Us Strangers earned a $132,000 Fri-Sun/$160,000 Fri-Mon debut. That is a solid $40k per theater average for the acclaimed Andrew Scott/Paul Mescal romantic melodrama. 

In holdover news, WB and Village Roadshow’s Wonka earned $17.7 million over the Fri-Sun and $25 million over the Fri-Mon weekend. That will give the $125 million-budgeted, Paul King-directed, Timothee Chalemet-starring prequel $83 million domestic after 11 days. In terms of holds, that’s on par with Jumanji: The Next Level (-55% after a $59 million debut) but the Jumanji threequel was up against a Star Wars movie. Nonetheless, there’s little reason to presume that the kid-friendly musical fantasy won’t leg out over the rest of the holiday season and into mid-January. Oh, and the film has already sailed past $255 million worldwide (counting Monday’s domestic grosses, natch), meaning its likely worst-case-scenario finish (around $375 million) is pretty much on par with Aquaman 2’s best-case-scenario. Again, DC is doing WB more harm than good.  

If you wondered out loud why Wonka was being treated as a hit while The Marvels was being declared a bomb, well, Wonka just soared past the lifetime domestic and worldwide totals of The Marvels on around half the budget. Oh, and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will have $154 million domestically by Monday as it triples its $100 million budget worldwide, and even Aquaman 2 (still a likely whiff) could well double The Marvels’ global box office totals. Sometimes it’s not a conspiracy, sometimes it’s just math. Anyway, GKids’ The Boy and the Heron will earn around $3.85 million over the Fri-Mon frame to bring its total to a whopping $31 million domestic. Toho International’s Godzilla Minus One will earn another $3.8 million to pass $41 million domestic.  

Poor Things expanded to 800 theaters and earned $2.11 million (+65%) over its third Fri-Sun frame and $3 million over the holiday. That will give the terrific Emma Stone/Mark Ruffalo comic fantasy a $6 million running cume. The Favourite had $11 million by the end of Christmas weekend 2017, but it had been in limited release for four weekends instead of two. MGM Amazon’s American Fiction, another superb major studio comedy in the Oscar race, expanded to 40 theaters. It nabbed a $418,000 Fri-Sun/$556,000 Fri-Mon expansion weekend. That will give Cord Jefferson’s Jeffrey Wright-starring flick a $13,900 per-theater average and $878,000 cume as the Orion/MRC/T-Street production slowly expands amid the awards season. Napoleon will pass $200 million globally just after Christmas. It’s a streaming-boosting loss leader for Apple, but Sony and the participating theaters must be happy.