From left: Taraji P. Henson, Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks in “The Color Purple.”
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
The color purple brought some much-needed cheer to the year-end box office.
The musical, whose producers include Oprah and Steven Spielberg, opened Monday to $18.1 million in 3,142 theaters, the second-best showing ever for a Christmas Day film premiere and the best since 2009. Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks and Colman Domingo star in Blitz Bazawule's retelling of the popular Alice Walker novel, based on the Tony Award-winning Broadway show.
The record holder for biggest Christmas Day opening is 2009's Sherlock Holmes ($24.6 million), not adjusted for inflation.
The George Clooney-directed film “The Boys in the Boat,” another film that premiered on Christmas Day, also did significantly better than expected with $5.7 million from 2,557 locations. The MGM and Amazon adult drama starring Joel Edgerton and Callum Turner received an A CinemaScore along with “The Color Purple.” Michael Mann's “Ferrari,” also in theaters Dec. 25, earned $2.9 million from 2,330 locations after earning a B CinemaScore.
While “The Color Purple” easily bested James Wan's “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” with a $10.6 million box office on Monday, “Aquaman 2” is the overall winner of the Christmas long weekend with a four-day opening of 38.3 million in 3,706 theaters domestically. But the superhero sequel – which also received a mediocre CinemaScore of B – doesn't have much to complain about after posting one of the worst starts in the history of the DC Cinematic Universe. The Jason Momoa-directed superhero sequel fared better overseas with $80.1 million from 72 markets, with the bulk, $30.4 million, coming from China.
In 2018, the first Aquaman was the king of the year-end holiday season as it swam to a three-day opening of $67.9 million over the December 21-23 weekend. By Christmas Day, which fell on a Tuesday this year, its domestic tally was a whopping $105.4 million (as of December 25, the company earned $22 million). The film grossed $335.1 million domestically and $1.15 billion worldwide, the best grossing ever for a DCEU title, not adjusted for inflation.
Wan's film lends further credence to the superhero fatigue theory. The opening of “Aquaman 2” follows rival Marvel Studios’ recent $46.1 million box office debacle “The Marvels.”
This year's holiday box office was a mixed blessing. Revenue for the four-day weekend rose 11 percent compared to the same period in 2022, but fell 46 percent compared to 2019, which is considered a key pre-pandemic benchmark. And revenue for the three-day weekend (December 22-24) increased 1 percent over 2022 but fell 62 percent behind 2022. Year-over-year comparisons can therefore be difficult when it comes to year-end holidays. December 25th is a moving target.
With “Aquaman 2,” “Wonka” (also a musical) and “The Color Purple,” Warners definitely dominated this year's marquee.
Wonka, which opened the weekend before the holiday, placed No. 2 on the four-day holiday chart with $28.4 million in sales from 4,213 sites, for domestic sales of $85.9 million. The Timothée Chalamet-directed film is a resounding success overseas, where it has grossed $171.3 million so far, for a worldwide total of $257.2 million through Monday. Wonka and Color Purple prove that musicals may not be an endangered species after all, and it's no small feat that The Color Purple landed at number 3 on the holiday charts considering it only played for one day.
The animated family picture “Migration” from Illumination and Universal landed at number 4 on the four-day charts. The tentpole reports four-day opening sales of $17.5 million, the lowest launch in Illumination's history. So far the film has had a lukewarm performance overseas, but is expected to gross $22 million in 43 markets by Sunday.
The final verdict on “Migration” will not be made until New Year’s weekend, as there is no more lucrative part of the film this year than the week between Christmas and New Year. Still, Disney was rattled when Wish reported a five-day launch of $32.5 million over Thanksgiving last month.
As with the superhero genre, there is concern across Hollywood about the market for animated cinema.
Columbia/Sony's offbeat romantic comedy “Anevere But You” took fifth place with an estimated $8 million from 3,055 theaters over four days. The new film, starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, received a CinemaScore of B+. (No studio likes anything other than a variation of the A grade for most films.)
Almost 80 percent of all visitors who bought tickets for “Anyone But You” were women, while men made up at least 66 percent of those for the Zac Efron-directed wrestling drama “The Iron Claw” on A24, which was priced above expectations of $6.8 landed at number 6 million from 2,774 theaters.
At the special box office, Searchlight Pictures opened Andrew Haigh's acclaimed film “All of Us Strangers” in four locations in New York and Los Angeles. The awards contender expects an estimated four-day site average of $36,000, the highest of any film on the Christmas weekend charts.