Broadway Box Office Climbs 30% To $33M For Thanksgiving Week; ‘Slave Play’ Rejoins Roster

Coming into the weekend, everyone knew “Spider-Man: No Way Home” would break pandemic-era box office records. Previously, the biggest debut was with “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” which earned $90 million over its first three days back in October.

Naman Ramachandran Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed musical “West Side Story” and beloved canine mascot-hero property “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” were neck and neck for pole position at the U.K. and Ireland weekend box office.Disney release “West Side Story” topped the charts with £1.297 million ($1.72 million), while eOne release “Clifford the Big Red Dog” was just behind with £1.293 million ($1.71 million), according to numbers released by Comscore.

Broadway box office rebounded last week from the previous week’s post-Thanksgiving dive, with the fattened roster of 32 shows taking in a total of $30,533,809 for the week ending Dec. 12. The figure represents a boost of about 16% from the previous week.

Broadway box office settled back to its pre-Thanksgiving levels last week, with grosses for the 29 shows totaling $26,214,735, a 19% drop from the previous week’s holiday take.

Endeavor Group Holdings CEO Ari Emanuel dismissed the recently announced acquisition of ICM Partners by CAA as “the type of merger we did 10 years ago.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefAction-adventure film, “Schemes in Antiques” grabbed the top spot at the mainland China box office with a solid $25.6 million debut.It deposed crime comedy “Be Somebody” which had topped the chart for the past three weekends and earned $13.3 million in its fourth weekend, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Ghostbusters: Afterlife” crept into the background at the South Korean box office over the weekend, as the top three films remained unchanged.Nationwide aggregate revenue was a lowly $5.06 million as audiences avoided cinemas ahead of new health restrictions.Cinemas, along with bars, restaurants, gyms and museums, are among the high-risk places affected by a new tightening of health measures in Korea, intended to slow the spread of the Omicron variant of the

Neon and Participant opened animated documentary Flee to a $25,033 debut in four locations. That makes for a strong per-theater average of $6,258 ahead of a rollout early next year for the much-decorated Danish film ahead of Academy Award nominations Feb. 8.

J. Kim Murphy administratorAs is fitting for the days after Thanksgiving, moviegoers are largely turning out for leftovers this weekend.

The arthouse is awash with well reviewed new offerings from Danish animated doc Flee to Paulo Sorrentino’s Hand of God to IFC’s Benedetta heading into awards season and amid a paucity of new wide releases.

“Encanto” is set to take No. 1, adding $11 million on Friday to bring its 3-day total to $24.3 million and its estimated 5-day opening to $43 million, beating projections for a $35-40 million launch.

Remember when New York and Los Angeles use to post big figures for the opening of a specialty film at the box office?

Thanksgiving — “Coco” launched at the same time of year with $72 million and “Ralph Breaks the Internet” did as well with $84 million — the result was the best opening for an animated movie during the pandemic.Family films have been especially slow to bounce back, though with kids increasingly getting vaccinated, hopes have been rising that releases such as “Encanto” can lead a rebound.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterPaul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza” has secured the best pandemic-era debut at the independent box office.With speciality offerings like “Licorice Pizza,” the key metric is per-theater-average rather than overall box office tally since its playing in very few locations.

Encanto is on top at the box office!

“Encanto” has opened to roughly half of which fellow Disney films “Moana” ($82 million) and “Ralph Breaks the Internet” ($84.7 million) earned in their Thanksgiving openings, but is notable for being the first animated film this year to release exclusively in theaters. Studios have hedged their bets on family turnout to theaters by releasing animated films like “Paw Patrol: The Movie” and “Space Jam 2” day-and-date.

SUNDAY AM UPDATE, Refresh for more analysis and chart: Without Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick in the marketplace, the Thanksgiving box office was much lighter than previous holidays, grossing an estimated $141.3M over 5-days, off 46% from 2019’s pre-pandemic holiday.