Monday, November 28, 2022

Thanksgiving Sunday movie box office, 2017 to 2022

 
Thanksgiving Sunday box office is down 4% compared to last year, down 57% compared to 2018.

Source:  Box Office Mojo

IndieWire, 11/27/2022

Excluding the Covid-infused 2020 Thanksgiving weekend, of course.
The last time a Thanksgiving weekend grossed under $100 million was… never? Nearly 30 years ago, Thanksgiving 1994 saw a three-day weekend of $94.5 million… when ticket prices averaged $4.08.  [Top-grossing movie:  "The Santa Clause".] 
James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” (Disney) opens December 16 and (as we’ve said too often) it can’t come soon enough. But if we’ve learned one thing this year, an occasional massive hit will not salvage what continues to be a troubled theatrical marketplace.
 
11/28/2022 update, part 4, starts here.
 
Thanksgiving Saturday box office is down 3% compared to last year, down 57% compared to 2018.

Source:  Box Office Mojo

The Wrap, 11/27/2022
But since theaters reopened, there is a growing question of whether demand for such alternatives in theaters is even there. As we noted on WrapPRO with the box office failure of “She Said,” the only indie/specialty films that have gained traction at the box office this year have been genre films that offer a different brand of spectacle than their tentpole counterparts such as A24’s “Everything Everywhere All At Once” or, more recently, Searchlight’s “The Menu,” which has grossed $18.7 million over two weekends in wide release. 
By contrast, Oscar contenders that tackle serious real-life topics like Searchlight’s “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Focus Features’ “Tár” and United Artists’ “Till” are failing to even reach $10 million in domestic grosses, and it remains unclear if “The Fabelmans” can buck that trend and have the sustained audience turnout that prestige films prior to the pandemic used to score. Universal has not announced whether it will expand the film’s screen count, though it may do so closer to Christmas.
 
11/27/2022 update starts here

Thanksgiving Friday box office is down 13% compared to last year, down 60% compared to 2018.

Source:  Box Office Mojo

The Wrap, 11/26/2022
Projected for an already poor 5-day opening of $30 million, “Strange World” will now be lucky to even hit $20 million for the extended period after making just $11.2 million between Wednesday and Friday. With a reported budget of $120-130 million, the film’s performance relative to its price tag is drawing comparisons to Disney’s infamous 2002 bomb “Treasure Planet,” a film that earned just $16.6 million during its Thanksgiving opening and went on to make just $110 million worldwide against its $140 million budget before inflation. 
But at least “Treasure Planet” earned an A- from audiences on CinemaScore. What’s much more shocking than the opening weekend numbers for “Strange World” is its CinemaScore grade of B from opening day audiences.

11/27/2022 update, part 2, starts here.

Thanksgiving Day box office is down 23% compared to last year, down 62% compared to 2018.

Source:  Box Office Mojo

Variety, 11/26/2022
Overall, it’s been a fairly dire weekend for theaters. The five-day frame is projected to net $125.4 million in ticket sales across all releases, down 12% from last year’s Thanksgiving weekend — which had the additional handicap of arriving during a period of heightened COVID-19 precautions. This year’s crop of films aren’t connecting as strongly as offerings last year like “Encanto” and “House of Gucci.”
Case in point: Disney’s new release “Strange World” netted $5.2 million on Friday, pushing its domestic total to $11.8 million. That’s a terrible kickoff for the animated film, opening in a prime holiday window with kids out of school and weighted by an $180 million production budget to recoup.

11/26/2022 update starts here

Pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday box office is down 19% compared to last year, down 63% compared to 2018.

Source:  Box Office Mojo

The Wrap, 11/23/2022
Throughout this year, studios and theaters have been looking for signs of improvement in theatrical grosses over the early stages of the pandemic reopening process in 2021, but it is looking like this Thanksgiving weekend will struggle to even match last year’s 5-day holiday overall total of $142 million, which was down 46% from the $246 million earned in Thanksgiving 2019.
Related posts:
Pre-Thanksgiving box office weekend down 47% from 2017 peak.  (11/21/2022)
Going down: October 2022 box office drops 44% compared to 2018. (11/3/2022)
Weekend box office reports for October 2020.  (series)

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