Box Office: Liam Neeson Tops Wonder Woman As ‘Soul’ Passes ‘Mulan’ In China

The Marksman is the top movie at the domestic box office for the weekend. Briarcliff Entertainment and Open Road’s second Liam Neeson actioner in 90 days earned $3.225 million in 1,975 theaters over the Fri-Sun weekend and around $3.705 million for the Martin Luther King Day holiday frame. That’s close to the $4.1 million Fri-Sun debut for Honest Thief in 2,425 theaters back in mid-October, back when we had more available multiplexes. We’re looking at the lowest chart-topping MLK debut since at least the 1970s. Until things get better, and we can only guess as to when that would be (MGM’s No Time to Die on Easter? Universal’s F9 on Memorial Day?), we’re going to see “lowest chart-topping opening for this holiday since the dawn of recorded box office” milestones.

That’s not on the movies in play, and in a sane time, we’d be discussing the Fri-Mon debut of New Line’s Mortal Kombat redo and whether it capitalized on generational nostalgia. That The Marksman (starring Neeson as a Vietnam vet who ends up defending a young boy from Mexican drug cartels) played about as well as Honest Thief under grimmer circumstances shouldn’t go unnoticed. Save for the rare “big” releases like Wonder Woman 1984; the various newbies are attracting the few folks who, if able, still go to the movies to go to the movies. We’ll see if The Marksman, which frankly isn’t as good as Honest Thief, can “leg out” to a total near the $14 million earned in North America by Neeson’s last actioner.

Universal’s The Croods: A New Age earned $2.04 million (+13%) over the Fri-Sun weekend and $2.9 million over the Fri-Mon holiday frame. That gives the DreamWorks Animation sequel $40.139 million after eight weekends. That’s $3 million less than the $43 million opening weekend of The Croods in March of 2013. The only reason I’m positive to say about the film’s $134.9 million global gross is that the film only cost $65 million to produce, and it seems to be (in terms of ranking) doing well on PVOD. In a skewed way, comparatively cheap tentpoles that do “okay, I guess” theatrically and pull halfway decent PVOD numbers could be the industry’s future. If Wonder Woman 1984 only cost $65 million, I’d be less cranky about that one too.

Wonder Woman 1984 should make around $2.72 million over the holiday weekend, including $2.23 million (-10%) over the Fri-Sun frame. That’ll bring its domestic cume up to $35.9 million, or just shy of the first Wonder Woman‘s $38 million opening day back in 2017. It should be over $140 million worldwide by tomorrow or Monday, as the folks who wanted to see this in theaters did so over Christmas weekend. As far as its value as a loss leader (alongside the just-moved-to-March Godzilla Vs. Kong) for HBO Max, that’s a story not yet told. While its box office fortunes shouldn’t be compared to “normal” times, AT&T chose to release it as they did rather than waiting until June and thus can’t entirely claim “this doesn’t count.”

Pixar’s Soul is technically a box office bomb, too, with just $57.1 million worldwide in territories that don’t have Disney+. The vast majority has come from China, where the film has grossed $43.1 million, topping Mulan ($41 million). Considering it earned $4 million in China this weekend (-31%), there’s a good chance that it’ll pass Incredibles 2 ($51 million) to become the second-biggest Pixar title ever in China, behind only Coco ($189 million). Nonetheless, both Soul and Mulan ($66 million total) are, at best, loss leaders for Disney+. At least with Soul, it was about Oscar consideration (it’s likely to win Best Animated Feature). Fair or not, it’s tragic that these big “not a white guy” tentpoles were sacrificial lambs for streaming platforms rather than box office champions.  

Universal’s News of the World and Focus Features’ Promising Young Woman both debuted on PVOD this past Friday, three weeks after their respective Christmas Day domestic theatrical launches. The Tom Hanks-led Paul Greengrass-directed western is leading over at Amazon right alongside Yellowstone, having earned $8.724 million in its first 24 days of domestic play (Netflix has overseas rights). That’s well below “normal” for such a film. However, the current $3.434 million cume for Promising Young Woman isn’t that far off from what the movie might have earned in conventional times. Emerald Fennell’s Carey Mulligan-starring rape-revenge dramedy was always destined to be, barring significant Oscar attention, more blogged about than seen by paying consumers. I’m curious to see how it sticks around on the PVOD and domestic theater charts over awards season.