Box Office Week: The Grinch takes #1 with an excellent $66M. Overlord underwhelms opening at #3 with $10.1M. The Girl in the Spider's Web bombs opening at #5 to just $8M. Venom debuts in China to $111M and passes $200M domestic.

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #	Percentage Change	Budget
1	Dr. Seuss' The Grinch (2018)	$66,000,000	$78,700,000	1	N/A	$75M
2	Bohemian Rhapsody	$30,850,000	$285,273,150	2	-39.6%	$52M
3	Overlord	$10,100,000	$19,300,000	1	N/A	$38M
4	The Nutcracker and the Four Realms)	$9,565,000	$96,656,534	2	-53.0%	$120M
5	The Girl in the Spider's Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story	$8,015,000	$16,315,000	1	N/A	$43M

Notable Box Office Stories

Dr. Seuss' The Grinch (2018) - It says a lot about the juggernaut that is Illumination Entertainment that The Grinch is on the lower side of their opening weekends but it is still a pretty damn good opening at #1 with $66M. That puts it behind the last four Illumination releases as well as the $70M earned by the last Illumination foray into the Dr. Seuss world, The Lorax. This latter fact seems more surprising as I think it's arguable Grinch is a far more famous figure than The Lorax and it is notable the last time there was a Grinch film in wide release it was How the Grinch Stole Christmas which became the highest grossing film of its year (side note can you imagine a time where only 1 superhero film was in the top ten of the year?). So in some respects this does seem like a step down for the mighty Illumination until you take in some facts. For one, November is a very odd time to release an animated film and especially one about Christmas, but Grinch is doing very well in both regards.
Dr. Seuss' The Grinch (2018) - It is the third highest opening for an animated film in November, not a notable record but does show that it played well in a strange release time. Of course the secret weapon to every Illumination film is that magic $75M budget that they manage to keep every film near. The company has pioneered a cheaper and cruder style of animation than Pixar and Dreamworks than means they can put far more money into the marketing of a film, blasting every possible avenue for kids and their parents in every possible corner of the world. That's why 7 of their 9 films have opened over $50M and all but one of their previous films (Hop) have grossed over $200M domestic. And with an A- Cinemascore expect Grinch to similarly stick around for a long time. And with Illumination approaching more established IP like Cat and the Hat and Super Mario Bros. the company's future continues to look...bright (boooooo).
Overlord - Once again we learn, just because Reddit is hyped doesn't mean a film is going to do well as the Wolfenstein-esque Nazi zombie action film Overlord opened to a pretty underwhelming #3 to $10M. The film produced by JJ Abrams was one of his rare totally original IPs without even a hint of a Cloverfield around. The film carried a medium budget of $38M and hoped to play off the schlocky premise and a rock laden trailer to get the hype of well...the /r/movies crowd and it certainly worked in that regards as the audience was 69% male. However the film didn't appeal much farther as it was far under expectations and with a B on Cinemascore and mediocre critic reviews it doesn't seem like this one is going anywhere good. Abrams is one of the few people who seems to command enough influence to get strange IP like this made but it's a testament to how little risk audiences seem to be willing to take. Or that Nazi zombies are just reallllly old news. Now Nazi robot clown zombies, that's a $200M idea.
The Girl in the Spider's Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story - No, I'm not trying to be a dick with that title, that is actually the official title that Sony slapped on as the film tracked worse and worse. Thank god it worked, because the film broke all box office records and won the Nobel Peace Prize. No of course it didn't, the long awaited sequel to the 2011 film bombed horribly opening at #5 to $8M. The film was controversial from the start, with news that both the director (David Fincher) and the cast (Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig) of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would not return, making fans concerned. Then there was the choice of story as for some reason Sony decided to skip two books in the original Millennium book series and go straight to the fourth book, which notably was not written by the original author of the trilogy (who refused to return due to death) and was a fairly maligned novel. The trailers didn't give much confidence either, promising a film that was more goth hacker James Bond than the taut psychological thriller of the first. And then of course there's that awful title, one of the most openly desperate moves I've seen a major studio make in a long time. It's no wonder the film totally bombed. This a great example of Sony totally missing the point, revitalizing a series that's been dead for far too long with none of the forces that made the original a minor success and completely missing the tone and value the first film had. It's a special kind of failure when you think the best move Sony could have made was just never even bothering making this one in the first place.
Oscar Movie Round-Up - We are still waiting for some major new releases from Oscar hopefuls but we saw some solid expansions. First up is Can You Ever Forgive Me? which has been doing very well in its limited release, earning $1.4M this weekend in 391 theaters, a per theater average of $3,772. The film has been steadily growing in buzz since its debut, especially for the leads Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant who are becoming dark horse candidates in their acting categories. It's an acting category kinda week as Beautiful Boy, which has strong possibilities in supporting actor, expanded to 776 theaters to come in with $1.4M, a per theater average of $1,810. That's a pretty low PTA and may mean the film is ending its major expansion run. Meanwhile more sad boys as Boy Erased expanded to 77 theaters to come in with $725K, a per theater average of $9,416. The film about gay conversion therapy has not received the kind of rapturous praise that the director's previous film (The Gift) got but it has gained some acting buzz. Meanwhile Hugh Jackman's attempts to finally get close to that swole goldie boi has not been as successful as his biopic The Front Runner failed to gain much buzz in its limited release where it opened in four theaters to $56K, a per theater average of $14K. The film about the political downfall of Gary Hart has been criticized in a post-Trump election and post-MeToo world for being too soft and not incisive enough on its subject matter. The result has been an incredibly muted release and it doesn't seem like a good box office run will be helping its chances.

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 (Weekly)	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget	Week #
Incredibles 2	$212,891	$608,297,459	$1,238,553,699	$200M	22
Crazy Rich Asians	$244,843	$173,291,418	$235,091,418	$30M	13
Venom	$10,570,255	$206,233,603	$673,533,603	$100M	6
A Star is Born (2018)	$15,475,822	$178,020,388	$322,820,388	$36M	6
First Man	$3,022,835	$43,706,705	$93,806,705	$59M	5

Notable Film Closings

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Also you can see the archive of all Box Office Week posts at r/moviesboxoffice (which have recently been updated).

Submitted November 12, 2018 at 10:25PM by mi-16evil https://ift.tt/2qJost6

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