With the highly lucrative Thanksgiving corridor less than six weeks away, we’ve got three big films vying for your holiday box office dollars. MOANA 2 looks poised to return Disney to Thanksgiving glory after WISH and STRANGE WORLD misfired over the last two turkey days.
Universal has been very aggressively marketing WICKED, including a ubiquitous presence during the summer Olympics. The push has been working. Total awareness, unaided awareness, and interest have steadily climbed over the past few months.
The biggest wildcard is GLADIATOR II. On paper, the film looks like a winner. Ridley Scott is back in the director’s chair. It features a slew of up-and-coming actors, and stars Denzel Washington, one of the last great bankable movie stars. On top of that, sequels to TOP GUN and BEETLEJUICE have proven that there is a big appetite for sequels arriving several decades after the original. The same could be said for FURY ROAD, even if FURIOSA didn’t quite work.
So, what’s the problem? We’re calling GLADIATOR II a wildcard simply because it’s rated R, and November is not especially kind to R-rated movies. November as a whole, and Thanksgiving more specifically, is where family films flourish. WICKED is rated PG, and MOANA 2 will likely be the same. That instantly gives those two a leg up.
Consider this. Over the last ten years, only one R-rated November release opened above $30M. The table below lists the 10 top R-rated openings from 2014-2023. The list is riddled with films that disappointed at the box office. TERMINATOR: DARK FATE had the lowest domestic gross of any movie in the franchise (adjusted for inflation). The opening for HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 was about half the size of the original film. And DOCTOR SLEEP didn’t exactly have the same impact as THE SHINING.
While we try not to use historical comps from more than ten years ago, if we go back a little further, we can find a few examples of R-rated films that crossed $30M in November. IMMORTALS opened to $32M in 2011, DUE DATE got to $33M in 2010, and AMERICAN GANGSTER, starring Denzel Washington, debuted to $44M. But still, none of these are enormous openings.
The original GLADIATOR opened in 2000 to $35M and went on to $187M. That’s a 5.3 box office multiple. So, perhaps the sequel does not need a huge opening for a big total. The thing to keep in mind is that the original film earned fantastic reviews en route to 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. On top of that, films enjoyed greater playability two decades ago; we rarely see box office multiples get as high as 5.0. In other words, the first film was lightening in a bottle. Can it happen twice?
The good news is that audiences seem to be in the mood for R-rated films. Or at least they’re not afraid of them. DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE just broke numerous records for R-rated movies. Is GLADIATOR II in line to do the same?