For the second week in a row, the major Hollywood studios opted not to put out any new releases – and it's been grasped as a box office opportunity for alternative releases. To start December, Beyonce's Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé took the #1 spot in the Top 10, riding the concert movie wave started by Sam Wrench's Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in October – and this weekend, we're witnessing an impressive showing from a pair of Japanese imports: Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy And The Heron and Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla Minus One.
The former has managed to set some impressive records as the new top movie in the United States and Canada, and the latter had one of the most impressive second weekends we've seen in 2023. Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis.
The Boy And The Heron Breaks Records While Hype Sees Godzilla Minus One Have A Phenomenal Second Weekend
Hayao Miyazaki has been earning acclaim for decades – the filmmaker sporting an astonishing filmography that includes classics like Spirited Way, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and more. What's been unfortunate up until now, however, is that his reputation hasn't translated to box office success domestically.
The Boy And The Heron has itself rewritten that history.
The new 2023 movie is not only the first Miyazaki movie to win a box office crown in the United States and Canada, but, according to The Hollywood Reporter, it is the first original anime film to ever do it. The feature played in 2,205 locations this weekend and brought in $12.8 million, which is obviously excellent in the larger context of the release.
After just three days, the movie is well poised to become Hayao Miyazaki's most successful domestic release ever. His 2009 film Ponyo made $15.1 million during its full domestic run, and 2002's Spirited Away made $10 million. The Secret World Of Arrietty, an adaptation of The Borrowers, remains the most successful Miyazaki movie in North America, having made $19.2 million in 2012, though he only wrote the script; Hiromasa Yonebayashi is credited as the director.
The Boy and the Heron is said to be Hayao Miyazaki's final film, and it has earned great acclaim. The movie had a theatrical release in Japan during the summer, but it got an exceptional reception when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, and it has built further hype showing at many fall festivals since.
Including what it made domestically in the last three days, the movie has made $86.3 million worldwide to date, according to The Numbers.
As for this weekend's other big win for Japanese imports, Godzilla Minus One just had a phenomenal sophomore Friday-to-Sunday that was surely manufactured by the tremendous word of mouth that the feature has earned. The movie had a strong debut last week, making $11.4 million in its first three days, and it has now experienced a weekend-to-weekend change of just 27 percent – adding another $8.3 million to its domestic total.
This is a big deal for the Japanese Godzilla franchise, and what makes it particularly significant is the fact that the film is not a nine-figure-budgeted blockbuster. Per Variety, it only cost a reported $15 million to make. Worldwide, Godzilla Minus One has made $48.3 million thus far, and it likely won't be long until it has outgrossed Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi's Shin Godzilla from 2016 (which made $75.6 million during its entire global theatrical run).
The last few weeks have been rich for the King Of The Monsters, with Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters launching on AppleTV+ and the trailer for Adam Wingard's Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire launching, but the success of Godzilla Minus One feels like the cherry on top of it all.
Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé Takes A Hard Fall Following Its Modest Premiere
Segueing from Godzilla Minus One, Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé also just experienced its second weekend, though it can more accurately be described as a sophomore slump. While the kaiju blockbuster held on to third place in the Top 10, the concert movie dropped from first all the way down to sixth, adding just $5 million to its domestic total.
The numbers for Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé were already looking modest compared to Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, as its debut ticket sales paled in comparison ($21.8 million vs. $92.8 million). Now, the contrast between the two projects is looking even more stark. In October, the Taylor Swift movie fell 67 percent in its second weekend, which wasn't great... but Renaissance has plummeted a shocking 77 percent. After two weekends, The Eras Tour was sitting at $132 million at the box office, and Beyoncé's feature has only made $28 million so far.
There was a lot of excitement a few weeks ago wondering if concert movies could potentially be an big thing driving audiences to theaters... but it's now looking like things aren't going to pan out that way. Will we continue to see more of them in 2024 nonetheless? We'll have to wait and see.
Eileen And Poor Things Work Magic With Exceptional Per Screen Averages
Overall, this weekend's box office numbers aren't that thrilling... but I will point to some minor successes that aren't featured in the chart above. William Oldroyd's Eileen and Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things both played in limited release on Friday, and while they didn't make enough in ticket sales to register in the Top 10, they both ended up landing on the 2023 chart for best per screen averages.
Eileen, which stars Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway, is presently only playing in five theaters, but interest in the movie was significant enough in those locations to
see the film earn $615,000. That's $123,000 per screen, and it's the second best performance of that variety we've seen in 2023 (Wes Anderson's Asteroid City still holds the top spot in the record books, having made $853,382 in the same number of theaters back in June).
Poor Things is also off to a hot start after earning a splendiferous reaction from critics attending the fall festivals. Beginning its theatrical release this past Friday in Los Angeles and New York, the Emma Stone film made $644,000 from just nine theaters. That's a theater average of $71,556, which is just a little less than what Ari Aster's Beau Is Afraid did when first played on the big screen in April.
Following a pair of relatively quiet weekends, Paul King's Wonka starring Timotheé Chalamet is arriving everywhere on Friday, and you'll have to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see where it ends up landing in the Top 10. Meanwhile, you can learn about all of the titles set to be released between now and the end of the year with our 2023 Movie Release Calendar.
