Timothée Chalamet is entering 2024 as king of the box office — marking the end of what’s been been a pretty damn good year in terms of ticket sales at the movies. Go figure!
The actor’s latest offering, “Wonka,” returned to #1 this weekend — this after claiming the same spot two weeks ago when it first debuted and slipping to #2 last week after the release of ‘Aquaman 2,’ which technically came in first … but still underperformed by a lot.
Those woes continued this week, with ‘A2’ slipping to second and Timmy’s film retaking its position as top dog to end 2023 — raking in about $24 mil through Sunday … and bringing its total domestic haul to about $142 mil, and its worldwide gross to a whopping $387 mil.
Considering this thing only cost about $100 mil to make, that’s a helluva good return. And considering WB has 3 films in the top 5 slots this weekend, we’re sure they’re happy too.
If you’re wondering what 2023 has been like, generally, at the box office well … movie fans might be in for a pleasant surprise — ’cause as it turns out, theaters cleaned up quite a bit.
This year saw a domestic box office gross of over $9 billion — which is actually great compared to recent years post-pandemic (’21’s $4.3B & ’22’s $7.3B). Now, it does pale in comparison to what theaters used to bring in — see 2019’s domestic haul of $11.4B — but still solid all things considered, and presumably an encouraging sign that theaters ain’t dead!
Of course, there’s a select few films we have to thank for this result … especially “Barbie,” which was the highest-earning movie this year by a long shot. Other honorable mentions go ‘Super Mario Bros.,’ “Oppenheimer,” ‘Across the Spider-Verse,’ and some Disney additions.
As far as superhero movies, though … those, by and large, turned out to be major stinkers.
So what have we learned about getting asses in seats going forward? Big IPs are winners, and so are splashy biopics. Now, it seems like folks might be tired of seeing capes and tights, though … so less of that and newer (familiar) wells of content might be the ticket.
Here’s to more popcorn in the new year. 🍿
