by Nathaniel R
Dear readers, we don't know why we relay the box office charts each week because they can be depressing. Films that should be giant hits are not and vice versa. With great regularity. We've learned to adjust our expectations so that now films that seem like giant hits made for adults are actually just modest hits if you compare them to year's past and so on. But for what it's worth here are this week's charts...
| Weekend Box Office Estimates (Nov 9-11) |
|
| W I D E 800+ screens |
PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide |
 |
 |
| 1 Dr Seuss the Grinch $66 on 4141 screens *NEW* Posterized |
1 🔺 Can You Ever... $1.4 on 391 screens (cum. $3.6) Review, Podcast |
 |
 |
| 2 Bohemian Rhapsody $30.8 on 4000 screens (cum. $100) Review, Podcast |
2🔺 Beautiful Boy $1.4 on 776 screens (cum. $5.1) Podcast |
 |
 |
| 3 🔺 Overlord $10.1 on 2859 screens *NEW* |
3 Free Solo $774k on 266 screens (cum. $8.1) Critics Choice Winner |
 |
 |
| 4 The Nutcracker and... $9.5 on 3766 screens (cum. $35.2) Review | 4🔺 Boy Erased $725k on 77 screens (cum. $997k) |
 |
 |
| 5🔺The Girl in the Spider's Web $8 on 2929 screens *NEW* |
5 Suspiria $326k on 261 screens (cum. $1.9) Podcast |
 |
 |
| 6 A Star is Born $8 on 2848 screens (cum. $178) Review, Soundtracking, Podcast |
6🔺A Private War $201k on 40 screens (cum. $283k) Eye Patches |
 |
 |
| 7 Nobody's Fool $6.5 on 2468 screens (cum. $24.2) |
7🔺 Wildlife $142k on 106 screens (cum. $611k Review, Carey Mulligan |
 |
 |
| 8 Venom $4.8 on 2351 screens (cum. $206.2) |
8🔺 Maria By Callas $97k on 26 screens (cum. $308k) |
 |
 |
| 9 Halloween $3.8 (cum. $156.8) Review |
9 Colette $83k on 81 screens (cum. $4.9) Capsule, Podcast |
 |
 |
| 10 The Hate U Give $2 (cum. $26.7) Review |
10 🔺 Burning $79k on 27 screens (cum. $198k) Review, Podcast, Foreign Film Chart |
| 🔺 = new or expanding theater count numbers (in millions unless otherwise noted) from box office mojo |
|
Some notes...
• Though it's not necessarily common, the week's #1 movie also had the best per screen average. The Grinch made $15,000-ish per screen. The nearest rival was The Front Runner (which didn't make the limited release top ten) with $14,000ish per screen. The different is roughly 4,000 screens though, LOL.
• The Girl in the Spider's Web is not really a hit, opening with four million less than the David Fincher film 7 whole years ago which begs the question of why the studios didn't just bankroll Fincher and Mara to do a sequel way back when. His film has aged well, after all, and though it wasn't a giant hit it did alright and sequels tend to be safe bets (if you retain casts) since the franchise definitely still has name-brand awareness.
• Suspiria is already losing screens. Why on earth didn't they go bigger before Halloween?
• A Star is Born is now just 10 million shy of breaking into the top ten of 2018 where it will replace A Quiet Place before quickly being booted out by, oh i dunno, Aquaman or something. The Bradley Cooper / Lady Gaga Oscar hopeful has started to lose screens but it had (by far) the best hold of any of the top ten, down just 27% from last week. So after 6 weeks it still has legs though competition gets a LOT crazier next weekend.
What did you see this weekend or are you saving your pennies for the opening of WIDOWS and FANTASTIC BEASTS next weekend? The studios are gearing up for Thanksgiving now so it's big openings every weekend until the year is wrapped.