Box Office Week: Moana has solid 2nd week at #1 with $28.3 mil. Incarnate bombs, opening at #9 with $2.6 mil. Fantastic Beasts passes $600 mil worldwide becoming 10th highest grossing film of 2016, Arrival passes $100 mil worldwide, and Disney sets all time domestic gross record ($2.49 bil in 2016).

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
1	Moana	$28,373,000	$177,388,330	2
2	Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them	$18,545,000	$607,907,403	3
3	Arrival	$7,300,000	$105,246,020	4
4	Allied	$7,050,000	$53,727,432	2
5	Doctor Strange	$6,486,000	$634,909,177	5

Notable Box Office Stories:

• It's safe to say when the only new release this week is a long shelved horror film that debuts at #9, Hollywood knows this weekend sucks. Moana coming in at #1 again is no surprise but dropping 49% for a weekend haul of $28.3 mil may seem like bad news. However Disney has etched out a pretty clear pattern of success and failure for this dire weekend and in comparison Moana's drop is actually quite good. On the same weekend Frozen dropped 53%, Tangled dropped 55%, and worst of all Good Dinosaur dropped 61%, so actually Moana is far succeeding those numbers. Now the game will be to see where it compares to Frozen, which stuck around dropping only small amounts until the Christmas weekend when it actually gained 45%. However this is where Moana will struggle as Frozen didn't have the direct competition that Moana will have with Sing which is expecting to be the big post-Rogue One hit. Also let's not forget that by the third weekend the best piece of marketing for Frozen came out, which was Disney releasing the entire "Let It Go" song from the film onto YouTube for free, a video that now has a 551 mil views. Disney is trying something similar by releasing the song "You're Welcome" for free on YouTube but while it's scored 5 mil views so far it doesn't feel near the hype and endless replays that "Let it Go" had. Moana also opened in more territories this week. It was #2 in UK for $2.7 mil, #1 in Russia with $5.1 mil, and #1 in France with $6.4 mil. However its foreign take is still low as the film continues to struggle in China where it's made $21.3 mil so far, as it is being chocked out by bigger films like Doctor Strange and Fantastic Beasts. It certainly won't come close to the $235 mil that China brought in for Zootopia. The film is holding strong domestically but needs a lot more international appeal to come in okay.

• Like I said when your only new release of the week is a film like Incarnate you know the weekend is historically bad. The WWE Studios horror film starring Aaron Eckhart was shot in 2013 but just now coming out this week to insanely bad reviews and opening at #9 with only $2.6 mil, a per theater average of only $1,531. Honestly the fact that this was a Blumhouse Tilt instead of standard Blumhouse release tells me this release is only to justify some kind of contract, as BH Tilt is a multiplatform style release for Blumhouse who hope to market films on VOD and in theaters at close to or the same time. Incarnate is exactly the kind of film we've been seeing a lot of this year, more leaked out than actually intentionally made for a big screen release. BH Tilt clearly wants to just get the theatrical release over with so it can soak up some VOD money with Eckhart's name.

• Since it's such a boring weekend for new releases let's discuss a couple older releases that have hit some milestones. First up is Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them which has passed $600 mil worldwide, making it the 10th highest grossing film of 2016. Most of this success is due to strong foreign appeal including a total $72.5 mil in China, though it was topped in that country this week by the release of the smash Japanese hit film Your Name. While the film's domestic legs have been pretty solid, it just hasn't made enough to make it come close to the levels of the Harry Potter films. The lowest grossing Potter film to be released in November was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets which by this weekend had passed $200 mil while Fantastic Beasts is at $183 mil. It seems pretty certain Fantastic Beasts will end up the lowest domestic earning Wizarding World film but if it continues to find the success it has had abroad so far it may not matter too much. Next up is Arrival which fans of the film will be happy to hear just passed $100 mil this weekend. The film was the surprise election weekend hit and has continued to ride good word of mouth to strong domestic legs, even surprising this week by dropping just 36% and going from #5 to #3 with a $7.3 mil haul. With word that Amy Adams may have a chance for Best Actress and growing support for a Best Picture nomination (as well as Passengers seeming more and more like a blockbuster than an Oscar play) the film could easily maintain with potential nominations down the line. Finally let's check in on Doctor Strange. The film continues to do well, especially for a solo superhero film. It has now passed its first Marvel sequel, Thor: The Dark World, in domestic gross ($215.3 mil) and has passed Iron Man 2 in worldwide gross ($634.9 mil).

• Oscar rollouts continue as Manchester by the Sea rode a wave of critics choice awards including the National Board of Review's film of the year and many best actor wins for Casey Affleck to earn $2.6 mil this weekend. The film added 108 theaters for a total 156 giving the film a a $15,151 per theater average. However the real winner of the per theater average this week was Jackie, the Natalie Portman led biopic about Jackie Onassis that opened in five theaters to $275,000, a $55,000 per theater average.

• Finally Disney set a big record this week as it moved past Universal's record last year of the most a studio has earned domestically in one year. Last year Universal's success with Jurassic World and Furious 7 gave it a domestic haul of $2.45 bil domestically, but this weekend saw Disney making $2.49 bil domestically for the year so far. This come even before the release of Rogue One, which has sold 90% of the the amount of pre-sales tickets of The Force Awakes and looks to be another impressive hit. The studio also set a personal record by passing $4 bil internationally for the first time in their history. Last year Universal was the first to set that record, ending up making $4.44 bil overall. Disney could get their with Rogue One but the current low foreign earnings from Moana may hamper it.

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	$486,293,573	$1,026,948,582	$200 mil	25
Moonlight	$9,896,107	$9,896,107	$5 mil	7

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget
Kubo and the Two Strings	$48,023,088	$69,523,205	$60 mil
Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life	$20,007,149	$20,637,184	$8.5 mil
I'm Not Ashamed	$2,082,980	$2,082,980	$1.5 mil
Ouija: Origin of Evil	$34,992,970	$80,692,185	$9 mil
Kevin Hart: What Now?	$23,574,605	$23,574,605	$9.9 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 December 05, 2016 at 10:03PM by mi-16evil http://ift.tt/2hacF4x