Hollywood is Continuing to Starve Movie Theaters to Death

Multiplexes will be relying on scraps, amid a soft December and no Oscar breakouts, until February as 'Mean Girls' plunges 72% on Friday

With no new major wide releases offered up this weekend (or next weekend for that matter), the top six this weekend will be identical from last weekend. By default, the biggest release of the week is Bleecker Street’s I.S.S., an ambitious and enjoyable B-movie sci-fi romp about American and Russian astronauts ordered to kill each and take control of their shared international space station. As exactly the kind of high-concept, inclusively-cast (recent Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose is the film’s top-billed lead), non-franchise original that everyone says Hollywood never makes but then doesn’t show up when Hollywood makes them on the semi-regular, I.S.S. earned around $1.25 million in 2,250 theaters on Friday for a likely $3.35 million opening weekend.

This almost… almost made sense in 2021 and 2022 when Wall Street was pressuring studios to be more like Netflix and prioritize streaming spending and subscriber growth. This kinda-sorta made sense when a global pandemic had caused a slew of studio programmers to be sold off to streamers and then caused a post-production traffic jam even after Wall Street had already changed its mind and demanded revenue and profits. But now? Everyone knows that streaming isn’t the one-size-fits-all miracle cure, and everyone knows that theatrical revenue brings in revenue and adds value to a given film as an eventual streaming title. Everyone knows that Wall Street no longer gives participation credit for having a bunch of media-friendly streaming shows and movies on your non-Netflix platform.

And yet (partially due to a self-inflicted dual labor stoppage that shut down the industry for much of 2023 and caused a slew of delays), there will be no new major wide releases until the Feb. 2 release of Argylle, which (ironically) is a big-budget, star-packed action comedy being released theatrically by Universal to boost its theoretical value as an eventual Apple TV+ streaming original. We really could have used a high-profile concert film from Madonna, Lady Gaga or Weird Al Yankovic this weekend. Of course, if audiences still showed up to “movie movies” (especially outside of the horror genre), which has been an existential problem for theaters and studios since 2016, then the irregular tentpole schedule would be less of an issue.

But that’s not new information and theaters cannot and should not be expected to subsist on surprise concert films, overseas hits and periodic over-performing Barbie-sized blockbusters. Not when we know that theatrical box office is mostly as healthy, compared to pre-Covid times, as the volume of major theatrical releases being offered on the regular. 2021 saw films like Godzilla Vs. Kong, Free Guy and Spider-Man: No Way Home vastly outperform even pre-Covid expectations. 2022 saw new records for Memorial Day openers (Top Gun: Maverick) and July 4th openers (Minions: The Rise of Gru) while 2023 saw a faith-based human trafficking thriller (The Sound of Freedom) top $180 million domestic while a three-hour, action-free, R-rated drama about science (Oppenheimer) topped $325 million in North America and became, globally ($915 million), the biggest-earning straight-up drama of all time.

When audiences have something they want to see, they show up, period. But when they don’t, they don’t. And while I wish that “movies they want to see” meant Ava DuVernay’s ambitious, intriguing (if not entirely successful) Origin, which opened in 125 theaters following an awards-qualifying run last month, we know that’s not the case. Cue a Friday gross of around $230,000 for a likely $770,000 opening weekend for the Neon release. So, sans anything else of note that qualifies as “new,” it was up to the holdovers, and not The Holdovers, to hold up the fort.

Paramount’s Mean Girls dropped hard on its second Friday, earning $3.25 million (-72%) for a likely $11.1 million (-61%) weekend gross and $49.5 million ten-day domestic total. Come what may, this was arguably a one-weekend-wonder, with little luck in convincing the unconverted to sample the goods. To be fair, we’re talking about a $35 million, star-free musical adaptation of a very popular 2004 teen comedy that was supposed to just go straight to Paramount+. Since the film was already going to get made (thus negating the production budget in this equation), all that matters is that the theatrical revenue justifies what was a pretty shrewd and financially responsible online-centric marketing campaign. We can expect around $75 million domestic when this one wraps up and joins its non-musical source material as an ideal double-feature on Paramount+.

Amazon MGM’s The Beekeeper earned $2.445 million (-64%) on Friday for a likely $8.4 million (-49%) second-weekend gross and $31 million ten-day total. That’s frankly a decent hold for a solo and/or R-rated Jason Statham action movie, and (by default) it will already be his fourth-biggest-earning top-billed star vehicle outside of the Meg movies and Hobbs & Shaw behind only Transporter 3 ($32 million in 2008), Death Race ($36 million in 2008) and Transporter 2 ($43 million in 2005). Barring a collapse, it should take the title at least in North America, and we’ll see how close it gets globally to Wrath of Man ($103 million in 2021), Transporter 3 ($113 million in 2008) and Mechanic: Resurrection ($125 million — including $49 million in China — in 2016).

Anyone But You earned $1.74 million (-17%) for a likely $5.7 million (-20%) weekend and $64 million month-long domestic cume. Yeah, the Glen Powell/Sydney Sweeney rom-com could end its domestic run with around $80 million. Wonka will earn around $6.5 million (-20%) in weekend five for a $187.5 million as it crawls its way to $200 million domestic. Universal and Illumination’s Migration will earn around $5.3 million (-15%) in weekend four for a month-long $95 million cume. Yeah, it’ll pass $100 million domestic next weekend. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will earn $3.7 million (-29%) for a $114 million domestic and over/under $400 million global cume. George Clooney’s $40 million Amazon MGM flick The Boys in the Boat will be at $44 million domestic tomorrow.

Blumhouse’s Night Swim will end weekend three with $23.5 million. Searchlight expanded Poor Things into 1,400 theaters and will earn around $1.91 million (+7%) for a $20.3 million domestic cume. The Iron Claw passed $30 million on Friday, becoming just the sixth A24 movie (after Everything Everywhere All At Once, Uncut Gems, Lady Bird, Hereditary and Talk to Me) to do so. Inflation aside, it should be noted that A24 has had three of their six biggest earners just in the last two years. American Fiction will earn $1.65 million (-13%) this weekend for a $7.9 million domestic cume. Alas, The Book of Clarence will drop 56% for a $1.13 million weekend and $4.7 million tent-day cume. Uh… catch it on Netflix I suppose?