“Bohemian Rhapsody” Rocks the Box Office

By Kip Mooney • On • In Weekend Box Office Report Weekend Box Office Report Comments Off on “Bohemian Rhapsody” Rocks the Box Office

BOX OFFICE REPORT

November 2-4, 2018

(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 5

Bohemian Rhapsody  $50.0 million
The Nutcracker and
the Four Realms		 $20.0 million
Nobody's Fool $14.0 million
A Star Is Born $11.1 million
Halloween $11.0 million

Last week I wasn't just off in my predictions, I was way off. Audiences really were hungry for a largely fictional story about Queen's rise to fame and their legendary performance at Live Aid. Despite mostly negative reviews overall, Bohemian Rhapsody had a massive $50 million debut. That's the second-biggest opening for a movie about a musician, behind Straight Outta Compton's $60 million back in 2015. Though it will face serious competition throughout the holiday season, it could easily be No. 2 on that all-time list.

Disney whiffed with their first big movie of the holiday season. The Nutcracker again proved that it doesn't translate well to film. The big spectacle got terrible reviews, and one of Disney's lowest openings, below even their Christopher Robin and Pete's Dragon remakes. It didn't do much better internationally either. It will go down as a pretty big flop, but don't be surprised if it picks up some Oscar nominations for its impressive technical achievements.

You'd think the combination of Tyler Perry and Tiffany Haddish would be too much to resist. Instead, it's one of the worst debuts of Perry's career, in between his poorly received Good Deeds and Daddy's Little Girls. A Star Is Born fell just 26 percent, moving out of second place. It's now made $165 million and might find itself in the top 10 before the month is over. Halloween dropped all the way to fifth. Its run may not be quite over since there are no true horror movies until after Thanksgiving. Though it still may face some competition from two thrillers opening next week.

Outside the top 5:

  • This Weekend's Indie Champ: Boy Erased, the gay conversion survivor story starring Joel Edgerton. The drama averaged $44,000 on each of its five screens.
  • Amazon Studios' two big awards contenders only had modest expansions: Beautiful Boy, the drug addiction drama starring Call Me by Your Name's Timothée Chalamet only made $1.4 million playing on 500 screens. Meanwhile, Suspiria, the horror remake from Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino, made just $964,000 on its 311 screens.
  • Mid90s took a big hit in its second week of wide release. Still on more than 1,000 screens, Jonah Hill's directorial debut dropped to 14th place.

Next week: 

Somehow we're getting our second Christmas movie and it's only the second week of November. The Grinch is one of two huge animated films opening this month. There's been a non-stop advertising onslaught, not just for the film itself, but for tie-ins from everything from IHOP to 23andMe. But the big question is: Do kids today care about the Grinch? Sure, the original TV special will remain a classic for all time, but Jim Carrey's live-action take is widely reviled, despite being the biggest movie of 2000. Will kids and their parents want another go-round, even if it hails from Illumination, which made $1 billion with three characters who only speak in gibberish? Probably, but I'm going to hedge my bets again and predict just $60 million, which is closer to the original Despicable Me. The Girl in the Spider's Web will be lucky to crack $15 million, while Overlord may not even break $10 million.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.