Yahoo Lifestyle Box Office: ‘Heretic’ and ‘Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ Vie for Second, ‘Venom 3’ Notches Third Weekend on Top
The major Hollywood studios skirted this post-election weekend and held off on new releases. Their absence is others’ gain though, as A24’s tricky thriller “Heretic” and Lionsgate’s seasonal play “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” each look to make a solid impression in their opening weekends.
But it’s Sony’s “Venom: The Last Dance” that continues to stay on top of domestic charts. After an underwhelming opening weekend, the “Spider-Man” spinoff has been putting up solid holds, turning in another one here. “The Last Dance” added $3.9 million on Friday, on its way to about $14 million for its third weekend of release. It has now notched $100 million in North America and will pass “Alien: Romulus” ($105 million), “IF” ($111 million) and “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” ($113 million) over the next few days to become the 14th-highest-grossing domestic release of the year.
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Then add in the lion’s share of its revenue that’s coming from overseas (nearly 70%). It’s unlikely that “The Last Dance” finishes as highly as “Venom” or “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” did, but the trilogy-capper has ended up salvaging a decent theatrical run considering its $120 million production budget, leaner than most superhero features.
“Heretic” is currently leading for second place after earning $4.2 million across Friday and preview screenings from 3,221 locations. The indie thriller, which stars Hugh Grant as a mind-game master that kidnaps two Latter-Day Saint missionaries (“Yellowjackets” star Sophie Thatcher and “The Fabelmans” standout Chloe East), is looking to get to $10.8 million across the three-day frame, per rivals.
That’d be a good launch for the R-rated “Heretic”— one that will rank among A24’s biggest opening weekends. Last spring’s “Civil War” is a distant first place at $25 million, but “Heretic” will land somewhere around “Hereditary” (second at $13.6 million) and “Talk to Me” (third at $10 million). Not coincidentally, those two are also horror films — a genre where audiences are often more receptive to arthouse aesthetics.
“Heretic,” directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, scored strong reviews after playing the Toronto Film Festival and AFI Fest. Ticketbuyers are much more divided. Moviegoer pollster Cinemascore turned in a “C+” grade for early audiences, but that’s also a fairly standard response for a horror movie, and an A24 outré one at that.
Looking at third for now, Lionsgate’s “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” earned about $5 million across Friday and preview screenings in 3,020 locations, on track for upwards of $9.5 million over the three-day frame. Produced on a lean $10 million production budget by Kingdom Story Company, which focuses on Christianity-centered storytelling, the merry-and-bright film looks to be a modest success that can put an end to Lionsgate’s rough streak of unfulfilled box office expectations, defined by recent flops like “Borderlands” and “The Crow.”
More auspicious for the Judy Greer and Pete Holmes comedy is its potential for positive word-of-mouth through the coming weeks, as the country gets into the holiday spirit. “Christmas Pageant” scored well with critics and Cinemascore turned in a glowing “A” grade — both good signs for chances at longevity.
Universal’s “The Wild Robot” is still sticking around the top five in its seventh weekend of release, looking to add about $6 million for this frame, only a 19% fall from last outing. The DreamWorks Animation production has now passed a $125 million domestic gross.
“Smile 2” will round out the top five, projected to add $4.9 million in its fourth weekend on screens. The Paramount release should pass $60 million through Sunday.
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