Box Office Week: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens at #1 with $75 mil. Other new releases couldn't compete as The Edge of Seventeen opens weak to $4.8 mil at #7, Bleed for This opens worse at #8 to $2.3 mil, and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk utterly bombs opening wide to $930k at #14.

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
1	Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them	$75,000,000	$218,300,000	1
2	Doctor Strange	$17,676,000	$571,542,877	3
3	Trolls	$17,500,000	$261,341,837	3
4	Arrival	$11,800,000	$54,215,853	2
5	Almost Christmas	$7,040,000	$25,420,740	2

Notable Box Office Stories:

• While may not have been the outsized success that Warner Bros may have hoped for, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them did open to a sizable $75 mil at #1. This marks the worst opening for a Wizarding World film, a certain disappointment for WB since the film marked the first full writing return of JK Rowling to the franchise since the seventh Harry Potter novel. Still $75 mil marks a pretty good opening for a film without the brand name "Harry Potter" in the title and good reviews and an A on Cinemascore means the film could have a significant legs. If the domestic haul has WB slightly worried, than any of those fears were eliminated by the foreign returns where the film earned $143 mil, the 30th best international opening of all time (though behind Potter 5-8's international opening) and it topped recent film Doctor Strange's foreign opening by $50 mil. This foreign pull included the best Wizarding World openings in South Korea, Russia, and Brazil and it should be noted the film hasn't even opened in China and Japan, though the incredible success of Doctor Strange in those countries may hamper things a bit. As an equal successor to Harry Potter, Beasts may look a little shaky on the domestic side but as the start of a new franchise it's on good footing. The real test will be the second film, especially now that the supposed trilogy has been extended to 5 films.

• While Beasts didn't destroy the box office, it still took plenty of people out of other theaters as the three new releases this week all came in very low. First up and best reviewed of the three is The Edge of Seventeen, the latest film from troubled STX Entertainment which opened to #7 with $4.8 mil. Despite being the best reviewed film for STX, they just couldn't translate the good reviews to ticket sales. For this one I think the blame can be squarely placed on bad timing. The audience breakdown for the film was 70% female and 75% between the ages of 17-34, a demographic that historically is very loyal to the Wizarding World franchise. While the film does have an A- on Cinemascore, with such a low opening it doesn't really matter much. With a low budget of only $9 mil the film isn't going to ruin STX (who are still riding on the surprise success of Bad Moms) but the film clearly won't reach its demo till it inevitably becomes a "Netflix underrated gem".

• Poor Miles Teller, once again the man stars in another flop as Bleed For This opened to a miserable $2.3 mil at #8. The film received decent reviews and an A- on Cinemascore but couldn't seem to attract any interest for the biographical boxing film. 2016 has been pretty rough on that genre, as Hands of Stone closed to only $4.7 mil earlier in the year. This also marks yet another awful release for Open Road Films who just had the film Max Steel flop and Snowden just closed far under budget. Despite this film costing only $6 mil it too seems likely to finish under budget and leave theaters instantly. Well at least /r/milesteller is going strong.

• While Hacksaw Ridge continues to have excellent legs, it seems not every soldier story is ready to be seen as Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk had a horrendous opening weekend, opening on 1,000 screens to just $930,000. That makes it the 92nd worst wide release opening of all time and the 57th worst opening weekend per theater average ($791) ever. So what went wrong here? Partially to blame may be that while the film was shot in a revolutionary 3D, 120fps format, only two theaters in the US could show it in that format with majority of the other showings in standard 2D 24fps, so the marketing couldn't really play up the immersive experience that Lee sold the film to critics as. Then there are the reviews. Before release Billy Lynn felt like another major Lee Oscar contender, but not only was the format panned but so was the film itself so any Oscar buzz has completely left the film. Then there's the fact that there already is a prominent war film doing well enough in theaters and the marketing was pretty shallow. Lee can take some solace that the film is doing better overseas, particularly in his native China where the film does have a few theaters running it in 3D, 120fps which may have added to the $11.7 mil pull so far from that country. However with a hefty budget of $40 mil, there's no way the film makes back its budget unless the upcoming foreign releases are just incredible.

• It's oscar season which means all the big players are starting to open and expand, so let's go through a few. First up is Manchester by the Sea, the long awaited film from Kenneth Lonergan that many say may give Casey Affleck his first Oscar. The film opened to $241,230 on only 4 screens, an impressive $60,308 pet theater average which marks a career best for longstanding oscar favorites Roadside Attractions. Next up is Loving, the latest film from Jeff Nichols which is based on the Loving v Virgina case that legalized interracial marriage. This weekend the film made $494,000 from 37 theaters (a $13,351 per theater average), and is expanding to more theaters on December 9th. Finally Moonlight has finally expanded to 650 theaters this weekend. The film earned $1.58 mil from this expansion which pushes it past its $5 mil budget. Finally Nocturnal Animals opened in the US to $494,000 in 37 theaters, a per theater average of $13,351. The film opened earlier in the UK, where it has earned an estimated $5 mil.

Films Reddit Wants to Follow

This is a segment where we keep a weekly tally of currently showing films that aren't in the Top 5 that fellow redditors want updates on. If you'd like me to add a film to this chart, make a comment in this thread.

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget	Week #
Finding Dory	$486,200,416	$1,025,542,532	$200 mil	23
Kubo and the Two Strings	$47,919,782	$69,279,910	$60 mil	14
Moonlight	$6,739,483	$6,739,483	$5 mil	5

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget
Ghostbusters (2016)	$128,350,574	$229,147,509	$144 mil
Hell or High Water	$27,007,844	$30,826,248	$12 mil
Snowden	$21,587,519	$31,346,669	$40 mil

As always /r/boxoffice is a great place to share links and other conversations about box office news.

Also you can see the archive of all Box Office Week posts at /r/moviesboxoffice.

Submitted November 21, 2016 at 10:18PM by mi-16evil http://ift.tt/2fUI6f9