“Coco” Stays on Top as “Just Getting Started” Flops

By Kip Mooney • On • In Weekend Box Office Report Weekend Box Office Report 0

BOX OFFICE REPORT

December 8-10, 2017

(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 5

Coco $18.3 million
Justice League $9.5 million
Wonder $8.4 million
The Disaster Artist  $6.4 million
Thor: Ragnarok $6.2 million

For the third straight weekend, Disney's Coco held onto first place. While that makes it the first film to stay on top for three weeks since The Hitman's Bodyguard this summer – and the first animated movie to do so since Moana – it's lagging behind past Disney hits. It's only made $135 million so far, well behind titles like Finding Dory, Inside Out and Frozen.

Justice League crossed $200 million, but the damage has been done, as Warner Bros. officially announced a reshuffling of executives in charge of future DC projects. It's the 10th biggest movie of 2017, and will likely finish ahead of Logan. But that still makes it only the fifth biggest comic book movie of the year. Worldwide, it will finish behind Man of Steel, even though tickets were cheaper four years ago.

Wonder crossed the $100 million mark, truly exception for a family tearjerkers. It's now beaten such blockbusters as Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Blade Runner 2049 and might even finish ahead of Fifty Shades Darker. The Disaster Artist had the best debut, as the biopic about Tommy Wiseau and the making of The Room opened with a very good $6.4 million, even though it's on fewer than 850 theaters. And Thor: Ragnarok crossed $300 million. That's the latest any MCU movie has opened and made that kind of money.

Outside the top 5:

  • This Weekend's Indie Champ: I, Tonya, the irreverent biopic of disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding. The film, which has gotten serious Oscar buzz for Margot Robbie and Allison Janney, averaged $61,401 on each of its four screens.
  • Just Getting Started, despite starring Academy Award winners Morgan Freeman and Tommy Lee Jones, and being written and directed by Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump), only managed a dismal $3.1 million. Definitely not living up to its title.
  • It was another very good week for Oscar contenders The Shape of Water and Darkest Hour. Both films continued their expansion and each jumped up more than 500 percent.

Next weekend:

There's this little movie coming out. You may not have heard of it. It's called The Last Jedi or something. Anyway, it's going to be the biggest opening of the year, and has the potential of being the second-biggest opening of all time. It won't top The Force Awakens record-setting $247 million debut, but I think $225 million is certainly doable, as we're likely looking at our third consecutive year of having a Star Wars movie be the No. 1 film of the year.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.

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