“Poor Things” scores the fall’s best special debut with $644,000
“The Boy and the Heron,” a fantastical coming-of-age story from animation master Hayao Miyazaki, grossed $12.8 million in its opening weekend, becoming the first original anime production to top the domestic box office. The GKids release is playing in Imax and other premium wide format venues, which boosted record-breaking grosses and helped secure the No. 1 spot. It also benefited from a lack of cinema offerings, with Christmas blockbusters such as “Wonka” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” still awaiting their debut in the coming weeks.
“The Boy and the Heron” marks Miyazaki's unexpected return to the screen after more than a decade of absence – the filmmaker behind classics like “Spirited Away” and “Princess Mononoke” announced his retirement in 2013 when his previous film “The Wind Rises” was published. “The Boy and the Heron” opened slowly internationally, grossing $84 million, including $56 million in Miyazaki's native Japan.
Last weekend's champ, “Renaissance: A Beyoncé Movie,” crashed in its second weekend, earning $5 million for a fifth-place finish. That's a steep 77% drop, suggesting the music icon's concert film may not have the staying power of “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” which grossed nearly $180 million. “Renaissance” grossed around $28 million domestically. Like Swift, Queen Bey bypassed a traditional studio to release her film and hired AMC Theaters to oversee distribution. This allows it to retain a larger share of ticket sales.
As “Renaissance” stalled, Lionsgate’s “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” took second place, grossing $9.4 million, bringing its domestic cume to $135.6 million. That's a solid number, especially considering that the production budget for the “Hunger Games” prequel is $100 million, a modest number for a film of this size and scope.
Toho International's “Godzilla Minus One” continued its successful run, scoring a record $8.3 million in its second weekend. The monster movie's domestic grosses are $25.3 million, making it the highest-grossing live-action Japanese film released in North America.
Universal and DreamsWorks Animation's “Trolls Band Together” is in fourth place, earning $6.2 million. This brings the family film's total to $83.1 million. One of the weekend's other new releases, Bleecker Street's “Waitress: The Musical,” brought in $3.2 million.
In limited release, Searchlight's Poor Things grossed £644,000 in just nine cinemas. The $72,000 per-theater average is also the best of the fall awards season — slightly behind the per-theater bows of “Beau Is Afraid” ($80,000) and “Asteroid City” ($142,000). ), which came out in spring and summer. The offbeat comedy from Yorgos Lanthimos, director of The Favorite, stars Emma Stone and has generated plenty of Oscar buzz since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the prestigious Golden Lion.
“Origin,” another critical favorite, opened in limited release to $117,063 in two theaters. That's an average of $58,532 per screen. Written and directed by Ava DuVernay, the Neon release adapts Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, a historical examination of hate and racism.
Next weekend sees the release of “Wonka,” a look at the candy maker’s early days starring Timothée Chalamet. That should boost box office returns, but theater owners and analysts expect this holiday season to be more muted than in the previous two years, when the mega-grossers “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” debuted .