THE WEEKEND WARRIOR Early Edition November 22, 2024

Box Office Analysis for Wicked, Gladiator II and Bonhoeffer

As promised (threatened?) I’m going to be trying to offer some early information in terms of box office predictions for those who choose to subscribe to the paid newsletter, and I definitely plan to have some info and analysis offered to those subscribers that won’t be available for free on my Substack normally. We’re going to give this a try for the next few weeks, but reviews and the repertory round-up will generally be offered for free. 

This is a big weekend, thought to be one that could contend with last year’s mega-”Barbenheimer” weekend where two movies (Barbie and Oppenheimer) grossed $244 million between them, the former taking the lion’s share with $162 million in 4,243 theaters. The box office has been so hit or miss this past year with a couple October releases (Joker: Folie à Deux and Joker: The Last Dance) failing to deliver on the expectations from previous installment. The last three weeks have only picked up once Dwayne Johnson was thrown into the mix with Chris Evans and Santa Claus, and even Red One failed to open as big as its distributor hoped. 

I’ve already reviewed Gladiator II, and by Wednesday, there should be reviews of the other two wide releases, which includes Angel Studios’ unfortunate attempt at counterprogramming in Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. For $5 a month, you can be the first to read my thoughts on this weekend’s box office, a full day before any of the trades get around to it. I’ll probably post the box office chart as part of the Thursday missive, but not the actual analysis.

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