The most recent project from horror masters Jason Blum and James Wan is called “Night Swim.” The movie made $5.7 million in its first wave of overseas markets, bringing its total earnings to $17.7 million worldwide.
With a $12 million domestic opening weekend, Night Swim finished second at the box office, trailing only Wonka, the Christmas standout.
As the post-holiday blues set in, Night Swim, the weekend’s lone new wide release, was produced by horror maestros Jason Blum and James Wan. Comparing the same period in 2023 with domestic revenue, there was a sharp 18% decline.
Despite harsh reviews and a C CinemaScore from viewers, the Universal horror film, which is currently playing in 3,250 theaters across North America, performed marginally better than anticipated. However, it fell well short of the $30.4 million opening weekend of Universal and Blumhouse’s M3GAN a year ago.
With a $15 million budget before marketing, the movie had a global loss of $17.7 million after earning $5.7 million from its first 36 overseas markets.
Night Swim, directed by Bryce McGuire, is based on a short film he and Rod Blackhurst co-made in 2014. The 98-minute film opens with a flashback showing a little girl trying to get a curious toy boat out of her backyard swimming pool and meeting a tragic end. Years later, the Waller family makes an appearance on screen: Ray (Wyatt Russell), a former baseball star whose career was cut short due to multiple sclerosis; Eve (Kerry Condon), his wife; Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle), his teenage daughter; and Elliot (Gavin Warren), his son, who is not very athletic but is twelve years old.
In parallel with Blum’s big-screen debut, Night Swim and Wan reached an agreement to combine their businesses, Atomic Monster and Blumhouse, respectively. (M3GAN is one of the films they had previously collaborated on.)
This weekend, Wonka from Warner Bros. continued to lead the US box office with an estimated $14.4 million from 3,817 locations. With the highest performance of any year-end holiday title, the Timothée Chalamet-led musical was the biggest winner of the 2023 Christmas season and is about to surpass the $165 million mark in North America.
Wonka crossed a significant milestone by collecting an additional $28.9 million from 77 markets, bringing his total earnings from overseas sales to $301.2 million and an astounding $465.8 million. (Who says musicals aren’t suitable for large-scale film?)
In addition to other Christmas favorites, the animated family film Migration from Universal and Warners’ Aquaman, the DC superhero from Warner Bros., are competing for third place.
With its expected weekend total of $10.6 million from 3,553 cinemas, Aquaman 2 has surpassed Migration’s predicted $10.3 million in revenue. Rival studios, however, indicate that Aquaman made around $10 million and trailed Migration, albeit not much.
Playing in 3,712 venues, Migration has brought in an estimated $77.8 million domestically. The most recent superhero movie to fail to connect with viewers is Aquaman 2, which has only just broken $100 million at home.
Although it has conducted a great deal more business abroad, the hemorrhage has not stopped. With $30.3 million more from 77 markets this weekend, the overseas total came to $234.8 million, but its worldwide cume of $334.8 million was somewhat little.
When the final numbers are revealed on Monday, the official running order of the two films will be determined.
Sony’s dark romantic comedy Anyone But You maintained its popularity and had a whopping 9% increase from the previous weekend. Completing the top five, the film brought in an estimated $9.5 million from 3,055 theaters, for a $43.7 million domestic cume. It earned an additional $5.4 million overseas, bringing its early international total to $14.7 million and its global total to $58.4 million.
With an estimated $6 million from 2,687 locations for a total cume of $33.9 million, the George Clooney-directed The Boys in the Boat from MGM/Amazon dethroned fellow adult picture The Color Purple for the first time this weekend, landing at No. 6.
From Warner Bros. and Amblin, The Color Purple brought in an estimated $4.8 million from 3,218 theaters, bringing in $54.6 million domestically as of Sunday.
The Iron Claw, an adult wrestling drama on A24, did rather well, earning $4.5 million from 2,392 venues for a $24.3 million domestic total.
Wonka and The Color Purple are two of the films vying for the top prizes at the Golden Globes on Sunday.
Originally released on January 6 at 8:17 a.m.
