Turns out the kingdom didn't last long.

Whether it was a surprise or not, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera managed to dethrone Mufasa: The Lion King for the top spot at the box office. In some very bad news, the wide expansion of Better Man was a complete disaster, finishing outside the Top 10.

The Top 10 earned a combined $69.6 million this weekend. That's down 16.8% from last year, when Mean Girls and The Beekeeper opened. Despite the current LA fires, the LA market still accounted for 8% of the weekend's gross, which is actually above the usual 7.9% in a normal weekend.

Debuting at #1, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera earned $15 million in 3,008 theaters. That's almost on par with the original Den of Thieves ($15.2 million). It's also the first Lionsgate film to hit #1 at the box office since The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes in 2023 (they've had a very bad run last year).

Even though it arrived 7 years later, clearly the interest was there for a Den of Thieves sequel. Compared to a lot of recent actions flicks with Gerard Butler, it has maintained that popularity thanks to home media and streaming. But these films corner the exact same market: the dad movie market. There's an audience who simply wants to watch an old-school action movie, and Den of Thieves delivers that (just like The Beekeeper did one year ago). The LA fires also didn't do much impact in its box office numbers; the LA market generated 10.4% of the film's box office, which is actually bigger than the original's 9.3% LA share.

According to Lionsgate, 63% of the audience was male. As mentioned, this was a dad movie; 79% of the audience was 25 and over, with 52% over 35. They gave it a "B+" on CinemaScore, which is the same grade as the original. January looks quite weak, although it will have to compete with stuff like Wolf Man and Flight Risk in a few weeks. Nevertheless, it has enough gas to hit $40 million domestically.

The reign of Mufasa lasted just one weekend, as it had to go back to the second spot. The film dropped 39.4%, adding $14.2 million this weekend. The film has earned $188.7 million, which is a colossal 61% behind the 2019 film through the same point.

In third place, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 dropped 46.8%, adding $11.3 million. With this, it has not only passed the second film's gross, but it also passed the $200 million milestone. It has earned $204.8 million so far, and it should finish with around $240 million domestically.

In fourth place, Focus Features' Nosferatu dropped 47.3%, adding $6.8 million this weekend. That takes its domestic total to a fantastic $81.8 million, and it's still on pace to finish with over $100 million, assuming it's not killed by Wolf Man this weekend.

Moana 2 fell back to Earth after its holiday boost. It dropped 47.5%, earning $6.5 million this weekend. The film has amassed $434.8 million domestically.

Searchlight's A Complete Unknown eased 37.4%, adding $5.1 million this weekend. With this, the film has crossed $50 million domestically, although the dream of $100 million died.

Wicked had a slightly rough drop. This time, it fell 48.7%, grossing $5.1 million this weekend. Nevertheless, it's not like Universal ain't hurtin'; the film has made $70 million in PVOD in its first week. The film has earned a fantastic $458 million so far.

In eighth place, A24's Babygirl is still holding very well despite the end of the holidays. The film eased just 30.6% (the best drop in the top 10), adding $3 million this weekend. The film has earned a damn good $21.7 million so far.

In ninth place, the Indian film Game Changer earned $2 million from just 805 theaters.

Rounding up the Top 10 was Roadside Attractions' The Last Showgirl, which finally had its wide release after having a limited weekend run at a single theater last month. It debuted with a solid $1.5 million in 870 theaters. While it's set to expand it in to a few more theaters, don't expect it to hit $10 million.

A24 expanded The Brutalist to 68 theaters, coming off its big wins at the Golden Globes last week. The film grossed a pretty great $1.3 million, which is a very strong $20,408 per-theater average. So far, the film has earned $2.7 million. It will see another expansion this weekend, before finally hitting wide release the following weekend.

Gladiator II fell 53.4%, adding $1.2 million this weekend. The film's domestic total stands at $170.9 million.

We have to go all the way to the #13 spot to find the weekend's other expansion, Paramount's Better Man, the Robbie Williams biopic. We knew it was not gonna break out, given that its limited release numbers were very poor. Yet the film managed to surprise us by going even lower.

Better Man debuted in 1,291 theaters, and the film earned a terrible $1 million. Yep, you read that correctly. That's an anemic $824 per-theater average. Assuming that each theater played this five times a day at a regular $11.90 ticket price, that means that there were just 4 people in each screening. Woah. And to make things worse, the film cost $110 million. Now, Paramount is not deeply invested in here; they only picked the distribution rights to the film for $25 million. They won't lose a lot of money, but this will be another money loss for them.

The American market was never going crazy for a Robbie Williams biopic for a simple reason: they have no idea who Robbie Williams is. That's quite surprising, given that he's the one of the best-selling singers in history (75 million records sold puts him in the same vein as The Weeknd, Green Day, Oasis, Nirvana and Imagine Dragons). But despite his popularity across Europe, Oceania and Latin America, Williams never broke out in America. Only two of his songs made it in the Billboard Top 100 ("Angels" and "Millennium") and they both peaked at #53 and #72. So despite selling out a lot of concerts and records, he's still a complete unknown in America.

There's also the decision that was supposed to be its selling point, but still drew a polarizing reaction. To separate itself from other biopics, the film decided to depict Williams as a CGI chimpanzee. Bonus points for originality, but that also confused the general audience. So the audience are left with two questions "who is Robbie Williams?" and "why is he a chimpanzee?" Instead of trying to find more or listen to a few songs from Williams, they simply chose to not watch it all. After all, a music biopic is aimed at big fans of a singer, so why would they pay for an artist they don't care about? Even with great reviews (88% on RT and 77 on Metacritic), that's not enough to make them change their mind.

According to Paramount, 56% of the audience was male, and 52% was 25 and over. Despite some great word of mouth (83% on PostTrak, 63% definite recommend), this is not a film that will leg out. It's not gonna hit $5 million domestically, and it's likely it could miss $3 million as well. We want to say it will be saved overseas, but the film has been disappointing in the UK and Australia so far. This is a flop.

OVERSEAS

Mufasa: The Lion King topped the box office with $27.8 million overseas, taking its worldwide total to $542 million. The film's best markets are France ($33.7M), UK ($29.9M), Mexico ($24.6M), Germany ($24M) and Italy ($21.8M).

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 added $20.3 million, as it's nearing $400 million worldwide. Most notably, it opened in China, where it flopped with only a little over $1 million. The film's best markets are UK ($25.9M), Mexico ($18.8M), France ($15.8M), Australia ($13.2M) and Brazil ($9.2M).

Nosferatu added $13.7 million, taking its worldwide total to a fantastic $135.4 million. It's Robert Egger's highest grossing film by a wide margin, passing The Northman a long time ago. The best markets are the UK ($11.1M), Mexico ($6.03M), Italy ($4.3M), Germany ($3.5M) and Australia ($3.4M).

Moana added $11.1 million, helping it reach $990 million worldwide. The film's best markets are France ($60.6M), UK ($49.7M), Germany ($41.7M), Mexico ($30.2M) and Australia ($29.5M). It's hitting the billion milestone sometime this week.

FILMS THAT ENDED THEIR RUN THIS WEEK

Movie Release Date Studio Domestic Opening Domestic Total Worldwide Total Budget Venom: The Last Dance Oct/25 Sony $51,012,404 $139,755,882 $474,775,261 $120M Y2K Dec/6 A24 $2,113,923 $3,763,863 $3,763,863 $15M

Sony's Venom: The Last Dance has closed with $474 million worldwide. Despite its poor reception and word of mouth ("B–" on CinemaScore), the film benefitted from a lack of competition, as studios chose to avoid releasing anything close to the election. A success? Definitely. But the film still ended up making less money than Let There Be Carnage, which was released in worse conditions and had no China grosses. Who knows what's the future for this character.

A24's Y2K has closed with a very poor $3.7 million in North America, which is a very bad 1.78x multiplier. Despite Kyle Mooney's interest in filmmaking, the film struggled to balance its horror and comedy elements, but at the end of the day, the audience simply wasn't interested. Let's hope his next film is much better, if he ever gets the chance.

THIS WEEKEND

We find two newcomers this weekend.

The first, and perhaps the weekend's winner, is Universal/Blumhouse's Wolf Man. The film is the latest addition in Universal's reboot of their Classic Monsters line-up, after the success of The Invisible Man (also written and directed by Leigh Whannell). Horror is a very reliable genre, so perhaps we might be looking at another winner here.

The other wide release is Sony's One of Them Days, which stars Keke Palmer and SZA as two friends who seek to avoid eviction. In the current landscape, there's been very few comedies not tied to IPS, so this can be a good test to see the interest in R-rated comedies.

ANNOUNCEMENT

As this weekend falls on the MLK weekend, the actuals will probably be delayed by a day. So the post will go up on Tuesday.

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