Friday Box Office Analysis
By Kim Hollis
January 4, 2020
Happy 2020, BOPsters! Now that we've swept away the dust from 2019, it's time to start wondering what box office will be for a new year. I fear the prognosis isn't great.
Last year, the Walt Disney Company was pretty much responsible for saving the movie industry, at least with regard to film exhibitors. Seven of the top ten domestic films were distributed by the company, with an eighth having them as an arguably large stakeholder. It seems highly unlikely that 2020 will approach the same heights (there's no Avengers or Star Wars or Frozen), but Disney does have a few projects coming soon. And DC may have a few winners as well.
Whatever we have to look forward to, 2020 didn't get off to a great start with its first wide release. The Grudge is a remake of a remake of a Japanese horror film. With regards to quality, think about the worst movie you saw last year. The Grudge probably throws under it. It got the rarest of rare F Cinemascore, the first movie to do so since last year's Mother, which required two pages of explanation before people could really decide what grade to give.
Produced by Sam Raimi (what's going on, buddy?) and starring actual good performers like Demian Bechir, Andrea Riseborough, John Cho, and Betty Gilpin, this film earned $5.4 million yesterday and is likely to come in with $14 million for the weekend.
In other news about mostly better movies, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker added $11 million to its tally and currently sits just short of $430 million domestically. Little Women is staking a claim as a legit Best Picture contender as it crossed the $50 million mark yesterday. And Frozen II is just *this* close to reaching $450 million.
By the way, at this point, Disney claims six movies that made a billion dollars worldwide in 2019. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker seems likely to reach that goal as well, which will give them seven. That's crazy, and unlikely to be duplicated in 2020.
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