‘Moana 2’ & ‘Wicked’ Strong Holds, ‘Kraven The Hunter’ Hopes For $12M+, ‘Lord Of The Rings: War Of The Rohirrim’ $5M+ – Friday PM Box Office

Anthony D'Alessandro

13 December 2024 at 5:23 pm·4-min read

UPDATED, FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Whatever ground Disney’s Moana 2 lost to Universal’s Wicked during the course of the week will be more than made up for this weekend, with a lot of walk-up business anticipated on the way to a third frame of $26 million, -49%, with around $6M today at 4,000 locations. The Dwayne Johnson-Auli’i Cravalho animated sequel will stand at $336.9M in domestic box office by EOD Sunday.

Wicked is flying to $357M by Sunday. While it easily became the highest-grossing movie based on a Broadway musical stateside over the Thanksgiving break, it has a way to go before it topples Mamma Mia!‘s global record of $611.4M in 2008. Wicked‘s fourth weekend is $20.5M, -44%, after a $5.3M Friday. Both Moana 2 and Wicked are strong holdovers for a pre-Christmas period such as this. A year ago, Warner Bros opened the Timothée Chalamet musical Wonka to $39M.

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Sony/Marvel’s Kraven the Hunter is seeing a $4.7M Friday in 3,211 theaters, including $2M from Thursday previews. The hope is that it crawls to $12M-$13M for the weekend now. Oh boy.

The fourth weekend of Paramount’s Gladiator II is seeing $2.1M today, and a three-day total of $7.6M, -40%, for a running cume by Sunday of $145.7M. By that point, the Ridley Scott-directed sequel will be pacing 18% ahead of his original 2000 movie, which finaled at $187.7M.

Warner Bros/New Line’s The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, booked at 2,602 theaters, is seeing a Friday of $2M+ and an opening of $5M-$6M.

FRIDAY AM: Sony’s $110M Spider-Man universe spinoff Kraven the Hunter collected $2M in previews Thursday night, while Warner Bros/New Line’s $30M+ anime movie Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim counted $625K.

Neither is expected to wow in their openings in a weekend that will be dominated again by Disney’s Moana 2, which is eyeing a 45% third-frame ease with around $28M.

Kraven the Hunter is pacing like an R-rated male action movie, expected to do around $15M a la Amazon MGM Studios’ The Beekeeper, which did $2.4M in previews for a $16.5M opening. Lord of the Rings is looking at a mid-single-digit opening. Sony and Warner Bros put these 18-34 guy-demo movies in the pre-Christmas frame given each of their challenges and to benefit off the holiday multiple after Christmas. Both are seen as counterprogramming to upcoming family-laden frame of Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

Kraven the Hunter previews began at 2 p.m. at 2,842 locations. Reviews at 14% Rotten are as bad as Sony’s Marvel bomb from earlier this year, Madame Web, which did 11%. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score for Kraven the Hunter is slightly higher than Madame Web, 68% to 55%.

The director of LOTR: Rohirrim, Kenji Kamiyama, is respected in the anime space with credits including the 2017 Gkids feature Napping Princess, the Ghost in the Shell TV series plus an episode of Disney+’s Star Wars: Visions as well as 13 episodes of Max’s Blade Runner: Black Lotus.

Among regular films in release, Universal’s Wicked continued to beat Moana 2 daily Monday-Thursday span, despite the sequel beating the Broadway musical on the weekends.

Wicked made $3M on Thursday to Moana 2‘s $2.2M. Why is that? Essentially, kids are in school during the week, which is why Moana 2 makes a comeback on the weekends. Wicked‘s weekdays are full of adult women. I’m told that once we get into the Christmas break period, we’ll see Moana 2 closing the gap with Wicked on a daily basis.

Wicked ends its third week with $50.8M with a total of $336.5M, while Moana 2 grossed $62.8M for a running cume of $310.8M.

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