DEN OF THIEVES 2: PANTERA | BETTER MAN openings | The year-end rally | The Golden Globes | Rotten Tomatoes update | January 10 to 12, 2025 weekend

Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary

The current weekend: January 10 to 12, 2025

We hope that you are staying safe…

1) Den of Thieves 2: Pantera opening

Den of Thieves: Pantera

- This is a good opening for the 2nd episode in a crime thriller series. The weekend figure is above average for the genre, with no drop from the first film's opening. These movies are made for audiences, not critics, and the audience score is very good (a B+ CinemaScore).

• Both Den of Thieves pictures were reasonably budgeted (#1 cost $30m to make, #2 cost an est. $40m). Gerard Butler is an established action star, and this kind of good-guys-versus-bad-guys material plays well around the world. Foreign business should be solid:

2) Better Man opening

Better Man

- This is a musical biography about the English pop singer Robbie Williams. Mr. Williams has sold more albums in the UK than any other singer, and he has a big following in Australia as well, but not in the U.S.

• This is a minor No. American release on a limited number of screens. Critics' reviews are outstanding (there's no CinemaScore yet), but U.S. audiences are staying away.

  • So far, overseas business has been good. The opening in the UK two weekends ago was twice the size of this No. American start:

- In the movie, Robbie Williams is played by a digitally animated chimpanzee. It's an outlandish choice. For anyone complaining that the industry plays it too safe, this is your movie.

• The film was independently produced with an est. budget of $110 million. That's an enormous amount of money for a vision like this. The risk-taking is excellent, but $110m is not realistic for the genre and for this musical artist. $25 to $30 million would have made more sense.

3) The year-end box office rally

- The 2024 domestic box office finished down approx. -3% from last year, and down approx. -23.5% from the pre-pandemic average (the average of 2019/2018/2017).

• We want to show you the year-end rally — the last six weeks of the year, starting the weekend before Thanksgiving and going through New Year's week. It was a strong stretch:

- The first half over Thanksgiving (Moana 2, Wicked and Gladiator) was stronger than the second half over New Years (Mufasa started slowly but picked up well, while Sonic 3 softened over subsequent weeks). But overall, it was an excellent finish to the year, on the level of pre-pandemic year-ends.

• If there was a weakness, it was that we saw a rare moment of family fatigue. There were so many good/big titles for kids, families could not see everything.

4) The Golden Globes

- Following the Golden Globe awards last weekend, we want to highlight the differences between the Globes and the Academy Awards.

• The Globes are voted on by approx. 300 non-American journalists. The Oscars are voted on by approx. 9,797 filmmakers and industry executives from all backgrounds. The Academy has expanded and diversified its membership over the last 10 years (there were only 5,856 members in 2014).

• The Golden Globe awards are top-heavy, with multiple Best Film and Best Acting categories, which generate publicity for the films and the Globes. The Academy recognizes the filmmaking crafts, as nominated by those who are expert in them:

- This particular year, the Globes awards reflect their members' international background. For instance, Globe members have relatively little experience with Bob Dylan and his music. Wicked is not as popular internationally as it is domestically. And Anora is not the vision of America that Globe members see themselves living. Of those three, only Wicked picked up a directing (and box office) award.

• Look for a different emphasis when the Academy nominations are announced, with a nod toward filmmaking and craft. The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez will still do well, while other movies rise based on their craft.

5) Rotten Tomatoes update

- As always, we are keeping an eye on Rotten Tomatoes. The average RT score has settled in the mid-60s during the last several years. That’s up sharply from where it started when RT was founded by three college students in the Bay Area in the late 1990s. Those dilettantes had no experience in film criticism or in the movie industry, but they caught on during the early years of the internet with their snarky attitude and dismal numbers.

• Between 1997 and 2010, the scores averaged a depressed 44.7. Someone needed to step in and clean this up, and Warner Bros. and Universal did that when they bought the website in 2011 and 2017:

- Going forward, we have several concerns:

1. The scores are getting a little bit bubbly. If a score of 60 & up gets a shiny red tomato, and a score of 59 & lower gets an ugly green splat, then the average should be around 60. The last four years have been higher than that;

2. Why celebrate and condemn movies with two simple labels in the first place? Is a 60-score movie good, and a 59-score movie bad? No. Many movies fall into the middle ground between 40 and 59. They should be recognized differently;

3. Finally, many movies still carry those negatively-biased, pre-2011 scores wherever they appear on viewing apps and websites. In 2004, 73.4% of wide releases got the ugly green splat. Those early scores are unfair and misleading to this day. RT should acknowledge the issue and adjust those scores.

- This is not a new story — it’s been covered over the years. Rotten Tomatoes dominates this space. It was worse before, it’s better now, but it’s far from perfect. We suggest holding your nose and using it. That’s what we do.

This is unfair.

Our last two posts were:

NOSFERATU | A COMPLETE UNKNOWN | BABYGIRL | THE FIRE INSIDE openings | December 27 to 29, 2024 Christmas weekend here

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 | MUFASA: THE LION KING | HOMESTEAD openings | Where we are now | December 20 to 22, 2024 weekend here

Stay safe!