The RedState Box Office Report - Last Weekend I’ll Give You My Cash…

Mixed results are reflective of a mixed year in theaters.

With the normally busy Christmas Day falling mid-week it led to some difficult to determine results with a mixed bag of offerings. The new packages under the tree were not nearly as popular as the older gifts from the prior week. Here are the titles that were unwrapped over the holiday weekend.

1. STAR WARS: EPISODE IX – THE RISE OF SKYWALKER – $72.0 Million
After a weaker open than the previous episodes, this culmination of the series is doing well enough — but that is a letdown considering this culminates a beloved franchise that is over 4 decades long. The numbers are still good and the profits will be there, but this wrap-up to the beloved canon is not in the stratosphere where you might expect it to be. Doing over $350 million in just 2 weekends, and matching that on the international side is an impressive haul; it is just not in the usual Star Wars orbit, as it were.

2. JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL – $35.31m
This is doing one-third stronger than last week, and had a strong Christmas Day showing, taking in $12.5 million that day alone. To date it has already made $175 million, and another $300 million in foreign markets.

3. LITTLE WOMEN – $16.75
The latest adaptation of the Louise May Alcott novel, starring Emma Watson, was a Christmas Day release. It gained some attention but not tremendous traffic, earning a steady $5-6 million a day to total up nearly $30 million so far.

4. FROZEN 2 – $16.5m
After a month and a half it sits at $420 million domestic, $1.2 billion globally. Staggering figures around that cold cash.

5. SPIES IN DISGUISE – $13.2m
Normally a major animated release with A-list voice talent – Will Smith, and Spider-Man’s Tom Holland – would make a bigger holiday impact. Except this was a 20th Century Fox property, and since it was acquired by Disney this year it meant the studio struggled with 3 major titles to sell for the holiday. Priorities meant this was pushed aside somewhat and marketed to a lesser extent.

6. KNIVES OUT – $9.72m
This has been a solid hit for Lionsgate and a testament to its popularity is it still playing on over 2,000 screens after 5 weeks, as well as a tidy $110 million in its run.

7. UNCUT GEMS – $9.57m
This Adam Sandler serious role has been granting him serious critical praise. After a qualifying limited release it opened up on over 2,300 screens and has become one of the biggest hits for the independent distributor A24 Films. There is a slim hope that Sandler gets some nominations for his performance. Seriously, no joking.

8. CATS – $4.83m
Last week’s complete implosion of this musical fiasco has become recognized not only as one of the year’s biggest bombs but possibly a classic in the annals of bad movie history. It has now been estimated that Universal could be losing at least $100 million on this failed Broadway adaptation.

9. BOMBSHELL – $4.7m
While not the bomb as its title could imply it is also not lighting a fuse in the box office. They are now holding out hope that awards nominations could float this to a longer run.

10. RICHARD JEWELL – $3.08m
In what has been a miserable run for this biopic it saw a slight recovery this week. Since Christmas it has averaged $1 million a day, boosting things slightly to a $16 million total.