I will not be making a Box Office Week next week. See comment below for details.RankTitleDomestic Gross (Weekend)Worldwide Gross (Cume)Week #Percentage ChangeBudget1Ralph Breaks the Internet$25,756,000$206,994,2332-54.2%$175M2Dr. Seuss' The Grinch (2018)$17,730,000$268,307,1954-41.7%$75M3Creed II$16,832,863$92,569,1472-52.7%$50M4Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald$11,200,000$519,641,4063-61.9%$200M5Bohemian Rhapsody$8,100,000$539,564,8255-42.1%$52MNotable Box Office StoriesRalph Breaks the Internet - In more of a win by default, Ralph Breaks the Internet took #1 this weekend with a solid $25.7M. That's not an amazing hold but for opening over $80M during the Thanksgiving break it's not too bad, most notably putting it on track with Moana which many felt opened somewhat low in the same spot but ended up pulling out an almost $250M domestic run. Ralph's drop though is a bit worrisome when you compare it to the first film which is the rare Disney Animation Studios film to not crack $200M domestic and $500M worldwide. With a stronger start it's possible that RBTI will manage to pass those milestones but just barely. Disney Animation rarely makes sequels but in the pipeline already is Frozen 2 and Zootopia 2 so RBTI is one of the first of this new generation of sequels to make it to market, but I don't think it's really comparable to this film which already is as close to a niche property as modern Disney gets. It's unclear where Disney goes from here. For one it's possible RBTI is a favor to director Rich Moore who apparently helped saved Zootopia and turn it into the massive hit it was. And it could be Ralph is just profitable enough to justify itself and garner some interesting film twitter conversations along the way. But I wouldn't be shocked if this is the final full adventure for Ralph. I can see Disney transitioning him into more of a Mickey Mouse role, an interesting figure who more exists as brand identity than a fully fleshed out character.Possession of Hannah Grace - I had a whole bitter write-up about this film but it got deleted and I realized who cares. The studio didn't, why else release a horror film with no pre-screenings for critics in one of the historically worst weekends of the year. Are you shocked it only made $6.5M at #7? Is it really that crazy it got a 13% on RT and a C score on Cinemascore. This is a classic cynical dumping grounds movie and it's not really even worth my time to get that upset about it.Bohemian Rhapsody - The surprising hit film about unknown indie rock band Queen has hit some major milestones this week. First off, it became the highest grossing music biopic domestically after passing the lifetime gross of Straight Outta Compton ($161.1M). Secondly, it has now become the first film in history that stars an openly queer protagonist to pass $500M worldwide. This is a huge step in queer representation on screen for one key reason, films need to appeal globally these days and globally the world ain't as woke about queer people as they are in the US. Just take a look at this map and note that all the beige countries have laws restricting freedom of queer expression and the yellow, orange, red, and maroon countries are places where it is illegal to have romantic/sexual same-sex relations (the maroons are the death penalty for such relations btw). When you get a bigger view of just how far the fight for queer civil rights is from being over it becomes more clear why Hollywood is so reticent to send out queer characters in major blockbuster films. That's the weird thing about Hollywood, for how liberal so many of the filmmakers are their exports are becoming more conservative as they appeal to a more global market. Just look at the insane backlash when Hollywood patted itself on the back for praising itself having queer characters in films like Beauty and the Beast '17 and Power Rangers '17. And despite the queer representation being as mild as possible those films still had notable calls for being banned in repressive countries. While Bohemian Rhapsody has had some blowback from the queer community for its depiction of Freddie Mercury's bisexuality, it is a film that openly acknowledges Mercury having male and female partners with romantic scenes with both. Now I do understand it isn't the ultimate end all be all of queer representation stepping forward. This is still a film that could be viewed by homophobic people as "look at the gay getting his just desserts by dying of AIDS". It's also historical fact that Mercury was bi so it's not quite the same as say making a Wonder Woman movie where her new love interest is a woman. And it's quite possible the film is heavily edited in more homophobic countries. But still seeing the film making almost $15M in a very repressive against gays country like Russia is pretty interesting and hopefully a step forward in more queer representation in the future.Oscar Movie Round-Up - Even the Oscar expansion race didn't have much to speak of with only The Favourite getting a few more screens. The film jumped to 34 theaters but made over $1M in just that small release, a per theater average of $32,500. The film is looking more and more like it has some surprising box office potential, perhaps lead by the wonderful dark trailer or the just general interest and fascinating with British monarchy kicked off recently by Netflix's The Crown. Whatever the reason it will be interesting to follow as the film very slowly creeps towards a wide release throughout December.Films Reddit Wants to FollowThis is a segment where we keep a weekly tally of currently showing films that aren't in the Top 5 that fellow redditors want updates on. If you'd like me to add a film to this chart, make a comment in this thread.TitleDomestic Gross (Weekly)Domestic Gross (Cume)Worldwide Gross (Cume)BudgetWeek #Incredibles 2$112,764$608,546,638$1,240,875,074$200M25Crazy Rich Asians$112,764$173,907,689$237,907,689$30M16Venom$959,589$212,270,652$843,970,652$100M9A Star is Born (2018)$3,930,393$193,822,436$362,422,436$36M9First Man$160,595$44,607,615$99,807,615$59M8Notable Film ClosingsTitleDomestic Gross (Cume)Worldwide Gross (Cume)BudgetDisney's Christopher Robin$99,215,042$197,300,391$70MThe Predator$51,024,708$160,542,134$88MThe Nun$117,450,119$365,050,119$22MAlpha$35,857,181$80,398,277$51MJohnny English Strikes Again$4,285,545$153,285,545$25MAs always r/boxoffice is a great place to share links and other conversations about box office news.Also you can see the archive of all Box Office Week posts at r/moviesboxoffice (which have recently been updated).My Letterboxd: https://ift.tt/2Q79jjT via /r/movies https://ift.tt/2EdeN7h
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