WONKA opening | CHRISTMAS WITH THE CHOSEN: HOLY NIGHT opening | The Golden Globes | December 15 to 17, 2023 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary
The current weekend: December 15 to 17, 2023
1) Wonka opening
- This is an excellent opening for the 3rd episode of a fantasy adventure series. The drop from the 2005 remake starring Johnny Depp is sizeable, but that movie opened during summer playing time. The December starts are slower and then pick up. This is about getting set up for a year-end holiday run, and Wonka is doing that:
These films average an excellent 5.5x domestic multiple — that’s the kind of run we’re talking about. Critics' reviews and audience scores are strong (an A- CinemaScore), and the genre performs well overseas.
With schools getting out, the audience is going to grow into five quadrants: younger & older females, younger & older males, and families. Wonka has the right tone for the holidays and momentum is very good.
2) Christmas with the Chosen: Holy Night opening
- This is a solid opening for a niche, faith-based follow-up to Angel Studios’ Christmas movie two years ago. The Chosen has a dedicated following from the television series (three more theatrical pics based on those TV episodes are coming in 2024).
This film started on Tuesday and did $1.7m before the weekend, for a $4.7m “6-day weekend” — that's better than this $3.0m weekend looks. There’s no market for the movie overseas, but domestic business should hold up well, with prime playing time over the next two weeks:
3) The Golden Globes
- By increasing the number of Golden Globe nominations in most categories to six, and adding a "Cinematic and Box Office Achievement" category with eight nominees, the Globes are naturally helping the more popular movies — that's no surprise. The top films are:
Barbie (9 nominations)
Oppenheimer (8 noms)
Killers of the Flower Moon (7 noms)
Poor Things (7 noms)
Past Lives (5 noms)
Anatomy of a Fall (4 noms)
Maestro (4 noms)
May December (4 noms)
- The Academy Awards has fewer acting noms and no Box Office Achievement, but it recognizes two screenwriting categories (original and adapted) and seven filmmaking craft categories, compared with one each for the Globes. A number of the films listed above are going to excel in the craft categories, and that’s going to shift the balance. Here are the numbers:
- The Globes are nominated and voted on by approx. 300 international journalists. At the Academy, specialists nominate specialists (directors nominate directors, writers writers, actors actors, designers designers, etc.). The two voting groups are very different. No one knows their work better than those who do it best — that’s what separates the Academy.
(All Academy members nominate the best film category and vote on the final nominees — approx. 9,800 voting members.)
- When the Academy nominations are announced on January 23rd, many of the same films will be in the mix, but the emphasis will be different.