Box Office Breakdown: Yup, It's Moana at the Top Again

Picking a good release date is part skilled market knowledge and part luck.  Moana's Thanksgiving release was a smart choice for Disney as it followed in Frozen's huge footsteps, but they also lucked out in a big way that no other family films tried to challenge their dominance in the following weeks, thus leading to a three-peat at the top of the box office.  This is great news for Disney, made even better by the fact that their new Star Wars flick, Rogue One, is set to explode the box office next weekend (estimates have it at over $130 million at the moment, but depending on the reviews, that might actually be a little conservative).  December has become a box-office powerhouse, but that hasn't always been the case.

Following the release of Jaws, studios would scramble to schedule their big budget tent-pole pictures on "good release dates" in the early summer months like May, June, and July, while using months like January, February, and August as dumping grounds for the films they were embarrassed to release.  As more studios try to get a piece of the forever-franchise pie, they have finally realized that the "bad months" were actually just a construct of their own release system.  If something looks like it is worth seeing, people will be just as willing to see it in December or January as they would in June.  Disney has been leading the charge into release date expansion in a big way.  Two years ago, Guardians of the Galaxy proved August could bring a huge opening, a fact confirmed by Suicide Squad's record opening this year.  The Force Awakens similarly proved that December could make as big a splash as any summer month.  Disney isn't playing this game alone, though.  Fox's Deadpool opened huge in February, and paved the way for Disney and Marvel's Black Panther movie in 2018.  

With release dates in mind, I can't help but think about how stranded Assassin's Creed and Passengers look on their December 21st mid-week opening.  Coming just five days after Rogue One, I can only guess what the studios were thinking.  For Assassin's Creed, they are chasing almost exactly the same demographic as Star Wars, and if I were the studio, I'd plan to be extremely underwhelmed by the opening numbers, which might even inch toward bomb territory.  With Passengers, at least this somewhat explains the terrible romance-angle of their marketing.  They are trying desperately to push this as clever counter-programming.  An intelligent adult answer to Star Wars' juvenilia.  The problem with this approach is that the trailers haven't exactly been selling intelligence, and their two leads, while both huge stars, appeal mainly to a younger demographic.  You know, the Star Wars demographic.  The release date is such a boneheaded choice for both films that it makes me think perhaps the studios each knew their films were stinkers, and so now when they bomb, they can tell their investors it was because of Star Wars mania, and not their own terrible creative decisions.

A few other notes:

• Raunchy comedy Office Christmas Party racked up an impressive $17.5 million, which I'm assuming star T.J. Miller won't feel the need to assault an Uber driver over.
• Fantastic Beasts continues to justify the WB's plans to make those films in perpetuity.
• Arrival once again beats expectations by only dropping 23% from last weekend and breaking $80 million domestic.  This is a good example of the clever adult counter-programming Passengers wishes it could be at night.
• Two indie darlings made their debut in the top ten this weekend.  Nocturnal Animals (Amy Adams' other Oscar hopeful) expanded to over a thousand screens, and doubled it's previous gross.  Likely best picture nominee, Manchester by the Sea, performed amazingly, making its $3.15 million at just 366 screens nationwide.  
• Interestingly, the seventh, eighth, and ninth spots were so close this week that there may be some shuffling when the final tallies come in.

Check out the full three day estimated top ten:*

1. Moana - $18.8 million
2. Office Christmas Party - $17.5 million
3. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them - $10.7 million
4. Arrival - $5.6 million
5. Doctor Strange - $4.6 million
6. Allied - $4 million
7. Nocturnal Animals - $3.19 million
8. Manchester by the Sea - $3.15 million
9. Trolls - $3.11 million
10. Hacksaw Ridge - $2.3 million

Wide-releases coming next weekend: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Collateral Beauty, La La Land (expansion), Manchester by the Sea (expansion).

*Box office stats courtesy of boxofficemojo.com.