December Box Office Will Start Slow, but Beyoncé Expected to Heat Things Up

December usually starts with a slow first weekend at the box office, but theaters might get some help as AMC continues its concert film experiment with Beyoncé’s concert film “Renaissance,” which hits theaters this weekend.

“Renaissance” was never expected to reach the record-breaking heights of Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour,” which opened to $92 million and has grossed nearly $250 million worldwide. But by the usual standards for concert films, Beyoncé is tracking for a solid result with a projected opening of around $18-20 million from 2,539 theaters.

A result in that range would put “Renaissance” in the top 5 highest openings for a concert film before inflation adjustment, below films like “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never” ($29.5 million in 2011) and “Michael Jackson: This Is It” ($23.5 million in 2009). Whether “Renaissance” can get closer will depend largely on walkup traffic from Beyoncé’s fans.

Even with a far more modest result, “Renaissance” is another example of how AMC’s plans to distribute concert films themselves via a partnership with indie distributor Variance Films is providing theaters with some extra revenue during weekends when the major studio release slate is slow.

Historically, the first weekend of December is slow as studios don’t want to release major films right after Thanksgiving weekend, where they could get lost against competition from the November holiday and have their potential legs cut short by films released closer to or on Christmas Day.

Usually there’s a strong Thanksgiving release that provides some degree of holdover support in early December. The highest total ever grossed by a film on the first weekend of December was $35 million by “Frozen II” in 2019.

But unless Lionsgate’s “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” continues to exceed expectations, holdover support will likely be low given that Disney’s “Wish” and Sony/Apple’s “Napoleon” earned 5-day openings below $40 million last weekend.

Other genre films that will provide niche support include Toho’s “Godzilla Minus One,” the latest film in the long-running kaiju series that has earned critical acclaim with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score. “Godzilla” will share Imax support with “Renaissance” and is projected for an $8-10 million opening this weekend.

Lionsgate will also release the holiday-themed revenge thriller film “Silent Night,” the first Hollywood production from famed action director John Woo in 20 years. Starring Joel Kinnaman as a man out to kill the gangs that murdered his son, the film is projected for a $4 million opening.

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