ARGYLLE opening | THE CHOSEN SEASON 4 EPISODES 1-3 opening | January 2024 box office | February 2 to 4, 2024 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary
The current weekend: February 2 to 4, 2024
1) Argylle opening
- This is a weak opening for a new action comedy that was written to be the first in a trilogy of films. Matthew Vaughn has had a lot of success directing this genre. At an estimated cost of $200m, as the start of a series, the weekend opening is below average:
The biggest action comedies feature broad-appeal comedic actors, or they're based on popular intellectual property, or both. For an original story to break through, the humor has to jump off the screen. That's not happening here. (Mr. Vaughn's filmography.)
2) The Chosen Season 4 Episodes 1-3 opening
- This is a fair start for a faith-based sequel. Historically, these sequels fall off sharply — that’s the case here and with Chosen #2 before this. There are no stars in these films, critics ignore them, they play quickly, and they do not travel overseas, but the stories are earnest and straight-forward — that's their appeal, and it resonates in the U.S. (the trailer is here):
Episodes 4-6 are scheduled in two weeks, and Episodes 7-8 are scheduled for two weeks after that. Angel Studios has built a dedicated following for their faith-based lineup. It's impressive and good for moviegoing.
3) January 2024 box office
- In January, the domestic box office was down -46.2% compared with the pre-pandemic average (the average of January 2020/2019/2018), and it was -14.9% below January 2023. The month was a step backwards:
The Beekeeper and Mean Girls did well, Night Swim was a solid horror release, and holdover business has been good, but the other new releases were small films. Pre-pandemic Januarys had titles like Bad Boys for Life (another action comedy), 1917 and Maze Runner 3 — bigger movies.
Release Count
- There were 8 new wide releases during this 4-week period (on 1,000+ domestic screens, we include wide re-releases such as Pixar’s Soul), but 5 of the titles opened domestically to $3.1m or less. That's thin:
The explanation for what's going on is familiar by now: the pandemic and strikes froze the development and production process and this is the long term result. The lineup should fill out during the 2nd half of the year, and the box office should improve.
Overall
- As noted, there are individual titles and parts of the business that are still performing very well — the Awards pictures are putting up particularly good numbers — but there's a glaring lack of broad-appeal, 4-quadrant (or 5-quadrant) juggernaut releases that appeal to everyone. That's what's missing.
At some point, several movies will surprise audiences and connect, and moviegoing will get hot again and go on a run, like it did last summer. That's how the business goes. Right now, it's cold.