Friday Box Office: 'Wicked' Tops 'Moana 2' as 'Kraven' Plunges 82% and 'Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim' Plummets 83%

'The Brutalist' earns a massive per-theater average, while Angel Studios' apocalyptic survivalist melodrama 'Homestead' opens on par with recent Angel Studios films.

In Friday’s box office news unrelated to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 or Mufasa…

The only other wide opener was Homestead. The Angel Studios release concerns folks dealing with the post-apocalyptic fallout after California gets nuked. Neal McDonough plays a wealthy doomsday prepper who’s also… brace yourself… a charismatic but slimy asshole. He really needs to make a movie with Giancarlo Esposito as two relentlessly intense and scenery-chewing bad guys who have to put aside their rivalry to work together to stop the forces of good. He and Jeff Erriskon’s more blue-collar protagonist act out the end-of-world moral debates between Chiwetel Ejiofor and Oliver Platt that made Roland Emmerich’s 2012 a surprisingly decent big-scale disaster flick. The picture opened with $2.9 million on Friday for a likely $5 million weekend. 

That will be on par with the likes of Bonhoeffer, The Story of Possum Trot, and The Shift. However, it received a surprisingly low B from CinemaScore, possibly because… don’t read if you don’t want to know… it ends with one of the more crowd-unpleasing final moments this side of The Devil Inside. No matter; based on Black Autumn by Jeff Kirkham and Jason Ross, the film sounds interesting and nuanced enough that I’d absolutely check it out if it weren’t opening amid the “I have so many Oscar screeners to catch up with” season. Barring December legs, even for this small-scale release, we can expect an expected over/under $12 million domestic finish.

A24 unleashed The Brutalist into four theaters following months of “Holy shit, this movie is amazing” critical acclaim and awards-season buzz. I shamefully haven’t seen it yet, having twice been stymied by heavy traffic and the fact that when you have a family and live an hour away, you don’t have a ton of flexibility for a 3.5-hour movie with a 15-minute intermission. I’m aiming for an early morning showing on the 26th. The Brady Corbet film, co-written by Corbet and Mona Fastvold, earned $128,058 on Friday for a likely $350,000 opening weekend and $85,700 per-theater average. The post-World War II immigration epic, starring Adrian Brody, Felicity Jones, and Guy Pearce (among many others), will expand wide in January.

In holdover news, Wicked Part One earned $3.72 million (-36%) on Friday for a likely $14 million (-38%) weekend and $384.4 million 31-day cume. It is now outpacing Moana 2 on the weekends as well as on the weekdays, and thus now destined to earn more, at least in North America, than the Disney sequel. Moreover, Universal’s musical stage adaptation is about to become the 13th biggest domestic earner, sans inflation, for any non-sequel/prequel/reboot/remake behind only Avatar, Black Panther, Titanic, Barbie, E.T., Captain Marvel, The Lion King, Jurassic Park, Wonder Woman, The Hunger Games, Spider-Man and Frozen. If/when it passes E.T.’s $439 million lifetime cume, it’ll rank just sixth in that painfully exclusive club.

Disney’s Moana 2 earned $3.3 million (-45%) Friday for a likely $13 million (-51%) weekend and $359 million 26-day domestic cume. However, it’s thus far less “end of weekend four” leggy than prior Disney Thanksgiving toons like Wish, The Good Dinosaur and Ralph Breaks the Internet (let alone the leggier likes of Coco and Moana). Now, we’re still looking at a $400 million domestic total, but merely doubling its $225 million Wed-Sun debut is now likely but no longer assured. Is that cause for alarm? No, since it’s still going to flirt with $1 billion worldwide. But it is cause for concern in terms of ensuring these follow-ups don’t feel like Return of Jafar-level cash-ins. 

Paramount’s Gladiator II earned $1.25 million (-43%) while losing 827 theaters. The Ridley Scott sequel will earn $4.6 million (-50%) for a $154 million 31-day total. Sony’s Kraven the Hunter dropped 82% on Friday, earning just $865,000 for a likely $3.1 million (-72%) weekend and $17.5 million ten-day total. Warner Bros. Discovery’s The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim did its own swan dive, earning $350,000 (-83%) on Friday for a likely $1.3 million (-71%) weekend and $7.4 million ten-day cume. Red One will drop 65% this weekend, not because it’s on Prime Video but because it lost 1,001 theaters. Expect a $1.5 million weekend and a $95.5 million 38-day total.