It’s the time of year when a million movies come out, and so I’ll explain to you why I love the Chrismas box office so much.
You know I love following the movie box office. It’s fun to see what movies do well, what movies don’t, and cheer on the stuff I love. It’s been a very tough few years for the box office, but finally it seems like things have recovered from the pandemic… Finally… Thanksgiving had its best box office ever!
This Christmas is shaping up really well, too, and I will write about that in my next post. But for now, I want to explain my love for Christmas box office in general. For movie lovers, it’s a special time of year, just wonderful.
I love the zeitgeist of it all. Ten or fifteen movies all releasing in the same two-week span. The whole country’s going to the movies once, twice, even more times with their families. And unlike summer, it’s a serious mix of genres. Cute family films, bombastic musicals, indie dramas, niche counterprogrammers, heavy-hitting blockbusters… Christmas has it all.
The Numbers – Weekend Box Office Chart for December 28, 2012
2012 is one of my favorite examples. The Christmas releases that year had incredible variety. If you walk into an 18-screen multiplex on Christmas Day 2012 as a time traveler, you are able to see:
- Les Miserables
- The Hobbit Part 1
- Jack Reacher
- Lincoln
- This is 40
- Rise of the Guardians
- Silver Linings Playbook
- Wreck-it Ralph
- SKYFALL!
- …And several more films in wide release.
A phenomenal amount of great films all at the same exact time.
It’s the one time of year where all of North America feels plugged into movies, both on TV and in the theater. At least it was that way before the pandemic. Usually, films make the vast majority of their money during the weekends. The weekdays are quiet and calm. But the Christmas box office doesn’t roll that way. It smashes in every single day from approximately December 15th to January 5th.
Movies usually have pretty low opening weekends. Spider-Verse, the original, opened to a paltry $35 million, or the same number as notorious flop Morbius. But the Christmas box office has a magic about it. Every single day matters, which means public opinion really counts. Movies can open small and build up over time. What looks like a flop on Day 3 can be a smashing success by Day 23. And the only way to know is to keep plugged into the zeitgeist.
Recently, more movies have been bucking that slow-burn trend. Mainly the big blockbusters like Star Wars and Hobbit, as well as that Color Purple remake which bombed spectacularly despite good reviews and a massive opening day. Or Mortal Engines which lost 90% of its showtimes on the second weekend but limped on in 3000+ theaters for nearly a month. I don’t like that because I don’t like almost any movie bombing. But it does show the power of zeitgeist backlash (stop hiding movies being musicals in the trailer, I guess?).
But I chase that high of watching the Christmas box office unfold and seeing what films are breaking out bigtime. A few stories over the era that made me feel great:
- Greatest Showman, a nothingburger competitor to Star Wars Episode 8 that built up so much goodwill that it went from an $8 million opening weekend to $80 million by the holiday season finish and a $174m domestic finish. I believe this is still the biggest opening-to-final multiplier, 21x, of a nationwide release film.
- Uncut Gems, which came out of nowhere to become a pulse-pounding crowd-favorite thriller and cemented A24 as the king of the Christmas box office counterprogrammer (They shoulda saved Love Lies Bleeding for Christmas this year!).
- Passengers, which opened low and simmered underneath with tepid reviews and mixed audience reactions, yet through sheer force of will crawled like a slug past the $100m domestic finish line. If not for the Christmas zeitgeist, this thing would have disappeared at $35m like so many others.
Every year has a loud success story, a secret favorite, some quiet gems. 2021-2023 were pretty dull for obvious reasons, but even they had some of that Christmas box office magic.
I’m more excited than ever for 2024 because it really looks like we’ve returned to normal where variety and quality are the name of the game. This year starts off a lot earlier than most due to the calendar, with the first two blockbusters releasing on 12/13. So it’s going to be a full three weekends, 24 days of Christmas galore. I’m ready.
Edit: Here’s my 2024 Christmas box office predictions!
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