JACKASS FOREVER opening | MOONFALL opening | January 2022 numbers | February 4 to 6, 2022 weekend
Opening weekend box office figures, charts and commentary
The current weekend: February 4 to 6, 2022
1) Jackass Forever opening
- This is a good opening. Few comedy series make it to a fourth episode (there have been only six), and even fewer make it to a fifth episode (only four). It's extremely hard to keep it fresh and funny for this long, but Jackass is doing that. Reviews are outstanding (at this point they are usually poor):
- On average, these openings start more than a third lower than the previous episode, at $16 million, so this drop from Jackass 4 is par, and the box office is a bit above average. (The last episode was spin-off Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa.) International has never been Jackass's strength, but international is growing. At a cost of only $10 million, the film is going to be very profitable.
2) Moonfall opening
- This is a weak opening. Sci-fi disaster adventures have played well on the big screen in the past, and Roland Emmerich has had success with it, but not recently. There’s nothing new here, and the execution is routine at best. At the moment, with the world coming apart in real time, who wants to sit through a disaster story? It's more fun to laugh at Jackass:
- Moonfall has a strong Chinese partner/producer, as well as co-starring cast member (Chinese-Canadian Kelly Yu). These movies have performed well in the past in China. Assuming Ms. Yu doesn't criticize her native country, the film has a chance of recovering some of its enormous $145m budget in China.
3) January box office
- After building some momentum during the summer, fall, and year-end, the first four weeks of 2022 took a sharp step backwards. Total domestic box office was down -63% versus 2020. We would like to say January is always quiet, but moviegoing is a 52-week affair now and January is active. For instance --
- In January 2020, Bad Boys for Life ($427m worldwide) and 1917 ($385m) did well. In January 2019, Aquaman ($1.1 billion) and Glass ($247m) did well. This year, Scream and Jackass are playing well for their genres, but not on the level of the previous years. The other wide releases were generally weak:
- February is going to be quiet too. Business will pick up with Batman on March 3rd, and the second half of the year is strong, on paper. We are particularly interested in several upcoming, well put-together, original titles, to see if they can get traction: Marry Me, Dog, Ambulance, Oh Hell No, Bullet Train, et al. Much will depend on Omicron and the variants.