In the North American film market this past weekend, because it coincided with the night of the "Super Bowl" of the American Football League, the box office data naturally plummeted. Compared with commercial blockbusters, on the contrary, some literary films shortlisted for the Oscars performed more ideally.
Argyle: Secret Agent poster
At the top of the weekend box office list is still Apple-Universal's "Argyll: Secret Agent". But the film grossed only $6.5 million in its second weekend of release, down 63 percent from its opening weekend. The film will be released in Chinese mainland theaters from February 23 after the Lunar New Year holiday, and there will be a clearer answer to why it has not performed well in the North American market.
"Argyll" was able to become the top weekend box office with a three-day box office of $6.5 million, which has not happened in all of 2022 and 2023, and the last time was back in 2021. Moreover, the $6.5 million weekend box office of "Argyll" was still harvested in 3,605 theaters in North America, and on average, each theater earned only $1,803 in the whole weekend. The fact that such a thin attendance rate can become the weekend box office champion is truly a miracle that has not been seen in the North American film market for many years.
"Lisa Frankenstein" reimagines the classic horror story for young female audiences in Gen Z
In second place is the newly released comedy "Lisa Frankenstein". The film grossed only $3.8 million in 3,144 theaters, which can only be described in a tragic word.
Lisa Frankenstein, distributed by Focus Pictures, is the directorial debut of Zelda Williams, the daughter of the late comedy master Robin Williams, written by Diablo Cody, who won the golden man for "Juno." The film is based on the popular story of Frankenstein, and has been remade for young female audiences in Generation Z. The film's freshness on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes" is only 49%, and it is basically classified as a bad film by film critics, and the popcorn index is 83%, and there is still some hope for future development.
There is a big difference between the critics' scores of "Lisa Frankenstein" and the audience's scores
Focus Pictures chose to release "Lisa Frankenstein" on a large scale throughout North America, reportedly in the hope of winning over young female viewers who don't like to watch the "Super Bowl". However, there is a new twist in this year's Super Bowl, and Taylor Swift, the girlfriend of Kansas Emirates star Travis Kelce, is sure to make many young women turn their attention to football over the weekend.
"Poor Thing" has surpassed $80 million at the global box office
On the theatrical side, "Poor Things" has been going strong after 11 Oscar nominations, grossing another $1.125 million this weekend, bringing its total North American box office to more than $30 million (and $80 million worldwide). This is the best North American box office of its kind since the last awards season's "Instant Universe". In addition, "Perfect Day" and "Fondue", which represented Japan and France in the Oscar race respectively, were nominated for the former and the latter were unfortunately eliminated, but both did well at the box office after being released in a small number of theaters in New York and Los Angeles over the weekend.
According to Comscore, the weekend grossed about $42 million in North America, the worst record for the same period in three decades — except in 2021, when theaters closed in large numbers due to the pandemic. It was also the worst weekend in 14 months, down 33 percent from last weekend and down 20 percent from last year's Super Bowl weekend of $52.6 million.
Historically, the "Super Bowl" has indeed had a big impact on the film market, but there have been some movies in the past that have achieved good results this weekend with reliable quality and word-of-mouth. For example, during the Super Bowl weekend in 2015, "American Sniper," which had been in theaters for six weeks, managed to fight its way through the cracks and fetched a staggering $30.7 million, while this weekend in 2020, "Jedi: Fast Pursuit," which had been in theaters for three weeks, earned $17.6 million. Like the two films mentioned above, "Argyll" also focuses on the male audience market, and also needs to compete with the "Super Bowl" tournament, which is dominated by male fans, but the results are very different.
Also according to Comscore, a box office statistics agency, the total box office revenue in North America in January this year was $513.6 million, more than $80 million less than last year's $599 million. That's 43 percent lower than the four-year average from 2016 to 2019, when North American grossing $1 billion in January. In fact, excluding 2021 and 2022, which had special reasons for the epidemic, the total box office of $513.6 million in January this year was the worst month in the past 25 years.
The main reason for such bad data is none other than the absence of new films. In the same period last year, in addition to relying on the aftermath of "Avatar 2", the topic work "Megan" also gathered a lot of popularity. And in January this year, he could only rely on "Wonka" and "Mean Girl" to barely support the scene.
For now, it doesn't seem to be much different in February. "Argyll" is probably destined to lose miserably, and it will be two weekends without new films, which can be said to be a world of difference compared to the situation when "Ant-Man 3", "Star-chasing Grandma Group", "Visit the Cabin" and "Cocaine Bear" took turns in February last year.
At present, it seems that the recovery of popularity in the North American film market will at least wait until after the release of "Dune 2" on March 1. Kung Fu Panda 4 (March 8), Ghostbusters: The Frozen City (March 22) and Godzilla vs. Kong 2: Rise of the Empire (March 29) will be released one after another, which should give the North American box office a catch-up in March.