Box office: Foreign, indie films dominate a top ten list with few, if any, big-studio hits

Among other things, there were two record-breaking Japanese films – The Boy and the Heron, and Godzilla Minus One – in the top three.

The Boy and the Heron—see if you can guess which one’s which—was the first Miyazaki film to top the North American box office.

Not a whole lot to say this week. Going to be a bit more point-form than usual.

First, it’s striking how there were arguably no live-action films produced by any of the Big Five studios in this week’s top ten.

• The one sort-of exception was Napoleon, the splashy $200 million historical epic directed by Ridley Scott… but that film was produced by Apple, and Sony is basically just distributing it for a fee before it goes to streaming. It landed at #7 with $4.2 million this weekend, for a total of $53.1 million to date.

• The only other “conventional” live-action movie in this week’s top ten was The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, a $100 million prequel to a major young-adult franchise… but that film, which earned $9.4 million this week for a $135.7 million cume, was produced and distributed by Lionsgate, which is not one of the Big Five studios (i.e. Disney, Sony, Warner, Paramount, and Universal).

Aside from that, what did we have?

• Three foreign films: The Boy and the Heron, Godzilla Minus One, and Animal.

  • The Boy and the Heron and Godzilla Minus One are both from Japan, and were both in the top three, which has to be some kind of first.

• Two big-studio animated films: Trolls Band Together and Wish.

  • The Boy and the Heron is also an animated film.

• Two recordings of musical stage productions: Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé and Waitress: The Musical.

• A “faith-based” independent film: The Shift.

Is this the first time we’ve had a top ten list without any live-action films produced by one of the Big Five studios (or Big Six, from the days before Disney bought Fox)?

I haven’t checked, but it feels like this might be the first time that’s happened. Last week we at least had Sony’s slasher film Thanksgiving, and before that we had Disney’s The Marvels and a series of big-studio horror movies including Warner’s The Nun II and Universal’s Five Nights at Freddy’s and The Exorcist: Believer, etc., etc.

So this past weekend was, perhaps, the starkest example yet of how the major studios have kind of abandoned movie theatres, and how theatres have learned to rely on unconventional films with dedicated fanbases—some of which, like Godzilla Minus One, have been able to attract new fans through strong word-of-mouth.

Not that the major studios have gone away entirely. Wonka, the Warner prequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was the top movie of the weekend globally as it grossed $43.2 million in 37 foreign markets, and it will hope to ride that wave of good news to even greater success when it opens in North America next week.

But we may see more indie surprises, too, as Christmas with the Chosen: Holy Night is opening this Tuesday and will continue to play through the weekend.

So, as ever, stay tuned.

And now, a few more stats and facts re: this week’s top ten, title by title: