It’s not that surprising that “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is doing poorly at the box-office. It was to be expected. The best thing going for it is that it will, maybe, make more money than “The Marvels” and “The Flash.”
The $205 million follow-up to 2018’s billion dollar hit, “Aquaman,” is capping off a terrible year for comic book movies. It swam to second place in its second weekend, collecting $19.5 million from Friday to Sunday. It has grossed $84 million domestically and $258 million globally after two weeks of release.
Meanwhile, “Wonka” is doing great. It regained the #1 spot with $23.9 million over the weekend and an estimated $31 million through New Year’s Day. Its total stands at $142 million domestically and $386.9 million worldwide. The Warner Bros. produced film cost $100 million to make.
Universal and Illumination’s “Migration” finished at the No. 3 spot with $17.2 million from 3,839 theaters over the weekend. The animated film, written by Mike White, has grossed $58.8 million in North America and $100 million globally to date. “Migration” cost $70 million.
Coming in at #4 is “The Color Purple,” which had a record-setting $18 million on Christmas day, but then kept dropping in numbers from Tuesday on. It’s now bounced back to a decent $13 million from 3,203 theaters.
‘Color Purple’ has so far made $50 million during its first week in theaters. It cost $100 million. It’ll need some legs if it wants to make its money back. Despite the positive reviews, the lack of Oscar buzz for this one is worrisome. It’s now, for the first time in months, out of the Gold Derby top 10 for Best Picture.
On the indie side, there have not really been any breakouts as “The Iron Claw” ($18M total), “Ferrari” ($12M), and “Poor Things” ($12M) continue to put up some decent numbers, but not amazing numbers.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.