Box Office Discussion Thread

The box office, as usual, tumbled the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend, thought the top movies stayed strong. Meanwhile, the weekend's one expansion did only so-so business, while the week's one newcomer proved to be an unmitigated disaster.

Leading the weekend for the third (and likely final) time was Frozen II, Disney's animated blockbuster that seems on a path to becoming Walt Disney Animation Studios's top grosser of all time. Even though it fell nearly 60% from its Thanksgiving weekend numbers, it still brought in another $35.2 million, enough to bring its gross to a hefty $338.1 million. Disney Animation's top grosser is still, surprisingly enough, The Lion King '94, which thanks to successful re-releases, currently has a final gross of $422.8 million (the first Frozen holds the Disney Animation record for single-release gross, at $400.7 million). Even with the intense competition that is about to hit, it seems extremely likely that Frozen has at least $85 million left in the tank, and should have topped Lion '94 by New Year's. However, thanks to significantly weaker weekday grosses this last week, the film has fallen well behind where Finding Dory was at the end of its third weekend.

Word of mouth sustained Knives Out, which fell a not-bad-for-this-weekend 47% for a second weekend gross of $14.2 million. The film's twelve-day total stands at $63.6 million, and it looks like a good bet to pass $100 million before the end of the year.

Likely passing $100 million before Christmas is Ford v Ferrari, which roared into third with $6.7 million, driving its total to $91.2 million. We'll see if Christian Bale's Golden Globe and SAG nominations will help rev up the film's fortunes.

In 4th, Queen and Slim also held up well, taking in $6.6 million for a 12-day total of $27 million. This has a decent shot of making it to $50 million, which would be a solid win for the relatively cheap drama.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is doing OK business, but is not living up to expectations. It grossed $5.2 million for a not-so-beautiful total of $43.1 million. A final gross of $60 million seems likely, as it, more than the four films above it, is at serious risk of losing screens in the next few weeks.

After two weeks in limited release, the drama Dark Waters went wide to OK results, taking in $4 million for a total of $5.2 million. For whatever reason, this is getting largely ignored by end-of-year awards, despite an Oscar-friendly cast (Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins), an Oscar-friendly director (Todd Haynes, working well outside his usual wheelhouse) , and an Oscar-friendly storyline (a true story about a lawyer who works to expose chemical manufacturer DuPont's negligence that has lead to numerous deaths). Waters will likely be lucky to break $20 million by the end of its run.

Rounding out the Top 10, 21 Bridges took in $2.9 million for a gross of $23.9 million, Playing With Fire earned $2 million to bring its total to $42 million, Midway brought in $1.9 million, bringing its earnings to $53.4 million, and Last Christmas opened up another $1 million for $33.5 million worth of wrappings.

Meanwhile, opening down at 14th, behind Joker, Harriet, and Parasite, all of which have been out for weeks and all of which are playing in far fewer theaters, is animated action comedy Playmobil. In a desperate bid to get people into theaters, the studio persuaded theaters to only charge $5 for all tickets to the film. That probably only had the effect of reducing what were already going to be very tiny grosses. As it stands, Playmobil only took in $0.7 million. How bad is that? Only three other films that debuted on over 2,000 screens made less money their opening weekends. When the only thing you can boast is that you managed to beat The Oogieloves, that's not a promising start. Expect Playmobil to finish as the lowest-grossing wide-release film of 2018.

This weekend brings in three new wide releases. The biggest should be Jumanji: The Next Level. Two years ago, when Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle opened, it looked like it was going to be swamped by Star Wars: The Last Jedi. However, Star Wars had burned itself out by the end of the year, and Jumanji proceeded to rule January. This year, the sequel gets a week's jump on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Also getting a jump on the holiday season's 800-pound light saber is Richard Jewell, a Clint Eastwood-directed chronicle of the aftermath of the Atlanta Olympic bombing, when the titular security guard went from being a hero to the prime suspect, even though he was innocent, and Black Christmas, the second remake of directer Bob Clark's first Christmas story, which was one of the first slasher films. Unlike the largely forgotten 2006 remake, this one is both rated PG-13 and seemingly alters the plot so that the killer isn't an escaped lunatic but frat boys who are part of a cult. We'll see if Jumanji can bring in some big bucks before Star Wars arrives to bring in bigger bucks this weekend.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was something rare in this day and age: a word-of-mouth hit--or at least as much of a word-of-mouth hit as an expensive franchise cog starring one of the biggest movie stars in the world and two other extremely well-known actors can possibly be. Opening five days after Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it under-performed in its first few days, but as The Last Jedi burned itself out quickly after Christmas, Jumanji began to gain momentum. On January 1, 2018, it became the #1 movie in America, a position it, with a few exceptions here and there, largely stayed at until after the Super Bowl.

Despite that film's success, there were concerns that Jumanji: The Next Level would under-perform. Welcome to the Jungle had faded from cultural relevance since the end of its theatrical run, and Dwayne Johnson had experienced a couple of box office disappointments since then.

The worries proved to be unfounded, as The Next Level opened to an outstanding $59.3 million. With the extremely lucrative Christmas week coming up, it could easily hit 2020 with $150 million already in the bank. That said, that is a long, long way from the first film's $404 million, and this January looks much more competitive than January 2018, so Jumanji will likely level down a bit. But even with that, this seems like a strong bet to hit at least $250 million before it ends its run.

Sliding down to second is Frozen II, which finished its fourth weekend with a still pretty impressive $19.1 million. The film has earned $366.4 million so far, and should be over $400 million by New Year's. Depending on how strong the holiday weekend gross is, it still has a shot at $500 million.

Knives Out continues its impressive run, taking in another $9.1 million for a total of $78/8 million. This should be over $100 million by the end of the year.

Opening in fourth is the first of this weekend's big flops, Richard Jewell. The Clint Eastwood directed drama about the security guard falsely accused of planting a bomb during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta could only muster $4.7 million. Jewell got decent reviews, but was undoubtedly hurt by reviews that were more polite than enthusiastic, plus the sheer number of adult-aimed movies that had already been doing moderate-to-blockbuster business. Jewell probably would have been better off doing an Oscar-qualifying run now and waiting until January to go wide.

Also flopping out the gate is Black Christmas, the second remake of the early slasher flick, that apparently has little in common with its predecessors beyond the idea of sorority girls being stalked during the holidays. This Christmas could only manage a $4.2 million opening. Luckily, the film is cheap, so it won't lose too much money (and might even end up with a small profit). Christmas might have rolled out better last weekend. The first weekend of December is usually a decent weekend for horror, and just four years ago, another PG-13, Yule-themed horror movie, Krampus, debuted to over $16 million. I don't think Black Christmas would have made that much, but it seems likely at at least some of its potential audience was seeing Jumanji this weekend instead, so it might have picked up a few extra bucks by going wide last weekend.

At #6, Ford v Ferrari is on the verge of hitting $100 million, earning $4.1 million for a total of $98.2 million. Queen & Slim continues to do decent business in the second-fewest films in the Top 10, with $3.6 million for a total of $33.2 million. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood brought in $3.3 million for a total of $49.3 million.

Rounding out the Top 10, Dark Waters fell to $1.9 million for a total of $8.8 million. 21 Bridges earned $1.2 million for $26.4 million.

Debuting in limited release outside the top ten are two films that are going wide in the next week. Uncut Gems, one of the rare occasions where Adam Sandler puts aside churning out unwatchable Netflix comedies to actually act, got strong reviews and opened on 5 screens to a per-screen of over $100,000. Meanwhile, Bombshell, starring Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theorn, and Margot Robie as Fox News employees who decide to take down Roger Ailes over his habitual sexual harassing, took in nearly $80,000 per screen.

This weekend features two of the most profitable franchises in history going head-to-head. In this corner stands Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which is officially drawing the original Star Wars series to a close. Both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi opened to over $200,000,000, and there is no reason to think that Skywalker won't do the same. In the other corner is Cats, an adaption of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/T.S. Eliot Broadway musical about cats, singing cats. The various theatrical productions over the years had brought in over $3.5 billion as of 2012, so that number is now probably higher. Cats is clearly hoping for a Dark Knight/Mamma Mia! scenario. Back during the summer of 2008, the action sequel and the musical opened up against each other, and even though Dark Knight became one of the highest-grossing films of all time, Mamma Mia also did extremely well. We'll see if history repeats itself this weekend.

The ninth and (supposedly) final installment in the original Star Wars trilogy of trilogies, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker debuted over the weekend to $177.4 million. By any objective standard, that's a staggering amount of money to make in just three days, but as I stated with the disappointing final gross of The Last Jedi and the disappointing, well, everything, of Solo, the words "Star Wars" means that something that is objectively staggering is just not enough. The Rise of Skywalker finished over $40 million below the opening of Last Jedi, and roughly $70 million behind The Force Awakens. It's also only the third best opening of 2019, behind The Lion King and Avengers: Endgame, which is almost certainly going to finish as the highest-grossing film of the year.

What caused the downturn? There are several possibilities, including the poor reviews, Star Wars exhaustion (this is the fifth straight year with a new Star Wars movie) franchise exhaustion in general, or maybe the fact that nearly all the buzz Star Wars has gotten the last two months centers on a creature that isn't even in Skywalker.

So, how much will Skywalker make? If it follows the path of The Force Awakens, it could finish around $670 million. But that seems highly unlikely. If it follows the path of Solo, it could finish with only about $450 million. That seems very low, as it will almost certainly finish well above $500 million. But, it could be the first film from the new trilogy to completely miss $600 million.

Falling to second is Jumanji: The Next Level, which did OK given the competition. Jumanji took in $26.5 million for a ten-day total of $102.3 million. While the original's $404.5 million seems out of reach, with a strong showing Christmas week, it could get to $300 million.

Frozen II continues to freeze out the family competition, taking in $13 million to bring its total to a cool $387.2 million. With kids out of school for the next two weeks, its weekday numbers should help juice its overall gross.

Coming in with an opening far more disastrous than even the worse-case scenarios could have imagined, Cats managed to bring in only $6.6 million. The Christmas box office bonanza will help mitigate the damage some, but at this point, a $40 million final would be a victory. This is getting far worse word-of-mouth than The Greatest Showman got two years ago, so don't expect a repeat of that film's extraordinary box office run.

Knives Out moved closer to $100 million by taking in another $6.5 million, moving its total to $90 million. Expect it to hit the century mark before the end of next weekend.

Bombshell had a decent expansion, grossing $5.1 million to bring its total to $5.5 million. How the drama about the toxic environment at Fox News plays going forward will likely depend on awards attention in the coming weeks.

Richard Jewell likely won't be getting much, if any, award attention going forward, as it came in 7th with $2.6 million, to bring its 10-day total to $9.6 million. Queen & Slim and Ford v Ferrari both took in $1.9 million, for totals of $36.6 million and $102 million, respectively. Rounding out the top 10, soon-to-expire horror flick Black Christmas could only manage $1.8 million, for a ten-day total of $7.3 million.

Because of Christmas, all of this weekend's openings occur today. The biggest is the animated Spies in Disguise, starring Will Smith as a superspy who gets turned into a pigeon, and Tom Holland as the inventor who came up with the machine that put the spy into that disguise. It seems like a good bet to finish second over the five-day Christmas weekend behind Skywalker. Also opening is Greta Gerwig's new adaption of Little Women. 25 years ago, the last major theatrical adaption of the novel, starring Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon, also opened on Christmas Day, which fell on a Sunday that year, and by New Year's night, had taken in $18.3 million. There's a good chance that this Little Women will be able to beat that in its first five days. Finally, going wide is the drama Uncut Gems, starring Adam Sandler as a desperate jewel dealer who keeps making bad decisions. He has a decent shot at an Oscar nomination, but the film probably needs to do solid business in wide release. We'll see how everything does on the final weekend of the decade next week, on the first day of the new decade. Until then, Merry Christmas!

2019 Extended Year-End Worldwide Box Office

25: Dumbo (2019) (-1) / Walt Disney, $347,866,307
24: Shazam! (-1) / Warner Bros., $363,664,533
23: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (-1) / Sony Pictures, $369,905,209
22: Godzilla: King of the Monsters (-2) / Warner Bros., $383,299,915
21: Alita: Battle Angel (-2) / 20th Century Fox, $402,971,268

First, we address who's not here - Paramount Pictures. Ostensibly one of Hollywood's Big Five movie studios, Paramount found themselves unable to field a movie in the top 25 highest grossing movies. So that's not great. The best they managed is Terminator: Dark Fate in 31st which as we all know was an unqualified success. (Just to be clear it was a disastrous bomb and potentially mercy-killed the Terminator franchise). They're going all in on Rocketman for awards season because if they don't bring home any Oscars they have literally nothing to show for this year. They'll be hoping and praying for a better 2020. 

Now onto the movies that actually showed up. This batch is an object lesson in budgets and expectation. Shazam! was (comparatively) cheap to make so Warner Bros is happy with that. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood was not cheap to make but Sony didn't want money, they wanted prestige. And QT came through for them on that. Dumbo (2019), Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Alita: Battle Angel would have all been great if they'd delivered these results on half the budget. Shout out to Alita being the one 20th Century Fox representative though. 

20: The Captain (-2) / Bona Film Group, $411,033,076
19: Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (-2) / Warner Bros., $429,685,022
18: My People, My Country (-2) / Huaxia Film, $433,568,803
17: The Secret Life of Pets 2 (-2) / Universal, $433,844,450
16: IT: Chapter Two (-2) / Sony Pictures, $470,288,232

Mixed bag here. We have The Captain and My People, My Country showing the growing financial power of the Chinese box office especially with nakedly patriotic movies. Detective Pikachu is another movie that would have been a slam dunk if it was cheaper to make or made a bit more money, but as it is may or may not get a sequel. And The Secret Life of Pets 2 and IT: Chapter Two are both sequels to breakout movies that didn't break out quite as much. We're still in that fuzzy area between a hit and a bomb for a big budget Hollywood movie. 

15: Jumanji: The Next Level (NEW) / Sony Pictures, $471,466,805
14: Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (-1) / Walt Disney, $475,377,589
13: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (-1) / Universal, $520,699,505
12: The Wandering Earth (-1) / China Film Group, $698,258,870
11: Nezha (-1) / Enlight Media, $708,797,197

Now we're getting somewhere. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is also in the 'sequel to a breakout movie that didn't breakout quite as much' club, but since it's Disney it does just a bit better. It remains to be seen how well Jumanji: The Next Level will live up to the original though it's already powering ahead of the other mildly disappointing sequels. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is, just like the first two dragon training movies, a solid earner that didn't break all the way out. And The Wandering Earth and Nezha end up just outside the top 10. Chinese films should only become more of a force in the years to come as the Chinese economy keeps growing, though we're yet to see a Chinese movie in the worldwide top ten since Wolf Warrior 2 in 2017.

10: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (+13) / Walt Disney, $725,186,406

As discussed in the above post this is a mixed result so far for a Star War, but still a serviceable continuation of Disney's iron grip on the 2019 box office. It's still reasonably likely to hit a billion dollars, at which point Disney would have seven billion dollar movies in a year. That would be a very good year for Disney.

9: Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (=) / Universal, $760,330,285

Universal's highest grosser for the year, Hobbs & Shaw was an experiment to see if Fast & Furious could support spinoffs. And the answer is... maybe? Like it's probably not what The Rock and co were hoping for, but it's still a large amount of money that will probably stay in the top 10 unless Jumanji really holds on over January.

8: Aladdin (2019) (=) / Walt Disney, $1,050,693,953

Disney's big surprise of the year. The critical and online response to Aladdin was tepid. Even after it opened very few people were expecting Aladdin to reach a billion. But then it kept holding on and holding on. It opened in late May and didn't leave the weekly top 10 until August, outlasting other franchise films like Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Dark Phoenix, Secret Life of Pets 2, and Hobbs & Shaw.

7: Joker (=) / Warner Bros., $1,060,470,910

The other big surprise of the year, Joker came out of seemingly nowhere to make sure there was one billion dollar movie that didn't have anything to do with Disney. Much like in his own movie Joker ends up being a symbol, this time in defiance of Disney hegemony.

6: Toy Story 4 (=) / Walt Disney, $1,073,394,813

And now to the Disney hegemony. Toy Story 4 was commercially successful, critically acclaimed, and looks set to restore Disney's control over the Best Animated Feature Oscar. That's if it doesn't get tripped up by a fellow Disney...

5: Captain Marvel (-1) / Walt Disney, $1,128,274,794

Remember way back when Brie Larson was the centre of a swirling internet firestorm? Well, sucks to be everyone who thought Captain Marvel would bomb because of Brie Larson's 'divisive' and 'radical' politics of "hey, maybe there should be press opportunities for women and minorities?" People acting like Disney has an agenda beyond liking money and wanting to make more of it.

4: Spider-Man: Far From Home (-1) / Sony Pictures, $1,131,927,996

Yes, this technically has Sony's name on the front. But Disney helped produce, Disney gets a cut of the box office, and Disney gets all the merch sales as a result of Spidey having a billion dollar movie. So they'll still count this. Another movie riding on the Endgame coattails for great success.

3: Frozen II (+2) / Walt Disney, $1,217,982,862

The fellow Disney threatening Toy Story 4's chances of winning the Oscar. It's a knockdown drag out Disney vs Disney, though Toy Story 4 will probably win the Oscar. Frozen II will just have to console themselves with making hundreds of thousands more than Toy Story 4 and being the highest grossing animated movie of all time.

2: The Lion King (2019) (=) / Walt Disney, $1,656,313,097

Do you realise how badly Disney wanted to rub their nuts all over the 2019 box office? They got fucking Beyoncé in their movie. Do you know how much Beyoncé costs? I don't but it's probably a lot. Sure, it was creatively bankrupt and a blatant money grab, but it made $1.6 billion dollars so they grabbed a lot of money. And it's doing a lot better than the other movie where people play cats.

1: Avengers: Endgame (=) / Walt Disney, $2,797,800,564

The crowning jewel of the Disney hegemony over the 2019 box office. Bob Iger circled 2019 in the calendar for the year Disney would comprehensively win everything. Launch a streaming service, buy Fox, release a bunch of billion dollar movies, and even take over the world of reaction gifs with Baby Yoda. True, 2020 is probably not going to be as crushingly dominant for Disney - no Star Wars, no Avengers, no Frozen. But they'll always have 2019.

Another thing that will hurt TRoS is that 1917 is an unusually strong film hitting wide release in January. It is definitely a critical favorite and is getting decent advertising, plus a week later Bad Boys for Life is coming out which should have a decent showing regardless of critical opinions.

I was originally going to post that Last Jedi was going to surge past Rise of Skywalker, but when I saw Jedi's daily numbers compared to Skywalker's numbers, I thought Skywalker had a decent chance to stay steady, particularly as Jedi was swamped by Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle by January, while Jumanji: The Next Level is staying behind Skywalker. It looks like I was overly optimistic about how Skywalker would hold up.

If it falls too far behind Jedi, its not going to make $600 million. $500 million is very doable, but $600 million is likely out of range.

Coming in on top for the third weekend in a row, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker started off 2020 by taking in $34.5 million, to bring its total to $451.6 million. That's enough to edge past studio stablemate Frozen II, Toy Story 4, and Captain Marvel to become the third highest-grossing film released in 2019. It finished the weekend just under $90 million below The Lion King. Skywalker has a decent shot of passing King, but probably won't make it to $600 million unless its January legs are much stronger than expected. Given that, on a weekend when most films's drops didn't exceed 30%, Skywalker dropped over 50%, that is a tall order.

Coming in second for the third weekend in a row, Jumanji: The Next Level took in to $26.2 million, bringing its gross to $235.9 million. There's a decent chance it could make more than Skywalker this coming weekend, but with all the newcomers, it is unlikely to finish 1st, even if it does pass Star Wars.

Little Women had been largely shut out of precursor awards Golden Globes and SAG, which released its list of nominees well before the film had opened, but the film's glowing box-office will almost certainly guarantee Oscar will pay closer attention. This weekend, it took in $13.6 million, to bring its total since Woman's Christmas Day opening to $60.1 million. With strong legs highly likely, there's no reason to think Greta Gerwig's adaption won't be above $100 million by Oscar night. That won't help it actually win Oscars, but that much money will help it get nominations, quite possibly for Best Picture and Best Actress.

Frozen II continues to chug along, earning $11.9 million and taking advantage of kids being out of school for the past two weeks to bring its total to $450.4 million. It's now less than $40 million below Finding Dory. With new family options until mid-February mostly limited to Dolittle in a couple of weeks, Frozen has a chance to glide through the month and pass Dory to become the second-highest-grossing animated film of all time (assuming you don't categorize The Lion King '19 as one).

Opening in fifth is the remake/reboot/sort-of sequel The Grudge. The long-dormant franchise did not exactly kick off the 2020 movie year in high fashion, grossing a disappointing $11.4 million and, even worse, earning a rare F from Cinemascore. Horror movies tend to have very bad legs, and this one could have even worse ones than usual. It's not completely out of the question that this could end with less than $20 million.

In sixth, Spies in Disguise held up better than expected, taking in $10.4 million. Like Frozen II, it took advantage of kids being out of school to run its gross to $47 million, though its still a long way from $100 million. Knives Out continues a most impressive run, taking in $8.9 million for a total of $130.1 million. A final gross over $150 million now seems likely.

Uncut Gems also held up very well, as the Adam Sandler drama took home another $7.6 million for a total of $36.5 million. This one seems likely to finish above $50 million, and if Sandler can snag an Oscar nomination, it could get above $60 million and maybe even $70 million. Bombshell is also looking for some major Oscar nominations, but its chances might be fading with its box office. It took in $4.1 million for a total of $24.6 million. In tenth is the holiday season's biggest Cats-astrophe, as it grossed $2.6 million for a total of $24.7 million.

Four films open wide this weekend, two of them going wide after limited, Oscar-qualifying releases and two brand new (or "new", for one of them) films. The big release is Sam Mendes's World War I film 1917, which goes national ahead of the numerous Oscar nominations it will undoubtedly get Monday morning. Also going wide is the legal drama Just Mercy, which frankly will be lucky to get any nominations. The brand new films are the comedy Like a Boss, where Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne swear revenge on Salma Hayek after she steals their company, and the sci-fi thriller Underwater, where a bunch of scientists on a deep sea research pod are menaced by something evil. This one has been sitting on the shelf for a while, made so long ago that TJ Miller is the male lead. I expect Underwater to end up all wet, but 1917 should take over #1, and Just Mercy and Like a Boss could challenge Star Wars and Jumanji for #2. We'll find out next weekend.

Forget The Last Jedi, it'll be damn lucky to beat Rogue One at $532m at this point. Without the holiday bump that line is straightening out frighteningly quickly, and Rogue One still has $40m on top of the end of the graph.

There are a number of factors that seem to be leading to Skywalker's slow fizzle. I liked the film, but it is easily the least of the new trilogy and sort of has the exact same plot as The Force Awakens ("We gotta find this MacGuffin that has a map to this super-secret place!"). People who loved The Last Jedi are upset about how Skywalker seems to just reverse all the revelations from that film, and people who hated Last Jedi may not be that eager to show up to see the next installment. Disney+ preceded the release of Skywalker with a smash hit Star Wars series, so a lot of casual fans might have been sated by that, especially since the that show's breakout star, who is the single most buzzed-about Star Wars character since maybe the Original Trilogy, is nowhere to be found in Skywalker. Plus, it could just be old-fashioned franchise fatigue. Unlike say, the MCU, which can somehow sustain multiple films a year every year, people might just be tired of going out and seeing a new Star Wars movie every year. It's probably good that the franchise is taking this year and next year off from the multiplexes. Hopefully, when the next one hits at Christmas 2022, they'll have learned some lessons.

Almost certainly not.  2019 was pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime year for Disney, which had a truly impressive slate of movies that people were pretty much chomping at the bit to see.  The only real question mark was Captain Marvel, and that did just fine as the bridge between Infinity War and Endgame.  Of course, they were able to pull off this trick by presenting a slate of sequels, remakes, and franchise cogs, and their 2020 slate has a lot of (gulp) originals. 

Indeed, of the 9 movies Disney is scheduled to release this year under their own banner (i.e. not inherited Fox movies), 6 of them are brand new stories (OK, two are book adaptions, and one is based on a theme park ride, but none have been made into movies before).  There are only two Marvel movies.  While I'm sure Black Widow will do fine, it's going to make a lot less than the two Avengers did in the summer kickoff sport did the past two years.  Eternals has a solid cast, but appears to introduce yet another new band of superheroes.  At some point, people are going to get tired of the constant stream of MCU movies, right?  If moviegoers are looking for an off-ramp, a film featuring few if any familiar characters from what's come before might be the place to do it.

Mulan will likely to do well, but its not an automatic slam dunk like Aladdin and The Lion King were.  Plus, those movies had at least one readily recognizable name in their casts.  Mulan's biggest name, at least to American audiences, will be Jet Li, who pretty much returned to making movies in China over a decade ago.

As for Pixar, that studio has had underperformers lately (Cars 3, The Good Dinosaur), and their last original, Coco, did very well, but still only made a fraction of what Finding Dory, Incredibles II, and Toy Story 4 did.  Speaking of Coco, it was a Thanksgiving release, and Disney's non-Frozen November animated output usually finishes between the high $100s and the mid $200s.  Again, nice money, but that means no one should be expecting Raya and the Last Dragon to do anywhere near the business that Anna and Elsa generate.  Indeed, it's not entirely out of the question that the combined grosses of Onward, Soul, and Raya might end up being in the neighborhood that Incredibles II did all by itself.

That brings us to Disney's three new non-animated, non-Star Wars, non-Marvel, non- animation remake films.  You have to go back to Into the Woods in 2014 to find a Disney release outside of those four wheelhouses that exceeded expectations.  Odds are that between Artemis Fowl, Jungle Cruise, and Ivan the One and Only, one will be at least a decent hit for the studio (if I was a betting man, I'd pick Cruise).  But with originals, there are no guarantees, and Disney hasn't exactly had a strong track record of launching new franchises (or even maintaining old ones outside the ones listed above) lately.

So yes, Disney could once again be the #1 studio of the year.  They once again could have multiple films in the Top 10, maybe even the highest grossing film of the year.  But there's almost no way they're going to be anywhere near as dominant as they have been.  There are just too many huge movies from other studios (Wonder Woman 1984, Minions 2, Fast & Furious 9, Birds of Prey, Top Gun 2, and unknowns like Tenet) for Disney to have another 2019.

Ha! And "Knives Out" has now outgrossed "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" domestically.

So far, there are a grand total of 3 original films in the 2019 Top 20 highest grossing films list. Films need to clear $140 million to make the top 20. (There are, of course, zero original films in the Top 10.)

By Monday, TROS should be over $100 million behind The Last Jedi. Great job there, Disney! This is nice day to compare them since day 32 of both films is MLK day.

Day 32 is also MLK day for Rogue One. Using the most current weekend estimates, Rise of Skywalker should end Monday being around $7 million *behind* Rogue One.

Wonder if we'd seen any media pieces about this if Rogue One really does outgross TROS?

Looks like Dark Empire Rise of Skywalker will probably hit $500 million, possibly through fuzzy accounting, and sputter out just short of Rogue One, I'm guessing. They'll take a few years off, release a new movie, and by then, potentially, all the Force Awakens figures will finally be gone from Walgreens.