‘Mean Girls’ Has Edge During First Weak Weekend Of 2024 – Sunday Box Office Update
There’s not much going on at the weekend box office. Yes, point fingers at the dual strikes’ impact on the theatrical schedule.
But it’s also January, which typically counts a couple of the year’s lowest-grossing weekends. The 3-day for all titles is looking at $68M, which is not only the first weak weekend of the New Year, but 8% off the same frame a year ago, which did $72.4M. Per Box Office Mojo, the first two weekends of January grossed $85.7M and $97M, respectively.
While Sundance — with the celebration of indie cinema and discovery of new filmmakers — rages on in Park City, UT, there’s never really been any correlation between what’s going on in Park City and what’s playing on national marquees, though pre-Covid, we’ve seen films perform significantly better in late January. Last year at this time, Avatar: The Way of Water, led the chart in its 6th weekend with $20.1M — again, something we don’t really have this year: a strong holiday tentpole carryover from the previous year. Sony’s Searching was the line wide studio release teeing off with $9.1M.
This year, it’s Paramount’s second weekend of Mean Girls at 3,826 theaters with $11.7M, -59% decline, for what will be a ten-day of $50M. Through ten days, new Mean Girls is pacing 19% ahead of 2004’s Mean Girls, which finaled at $86M. Why the drop? Was it because audiences weren’t informed in the marketing that it was a musical? No, Mean Girls fans are fully aware of that. Two reasons:- it’s a young female skewing movie (46% under 25) and those are typically front-loaded, plus that B CinemaScore. Mean Girls fans’ have high standards in the second go-round. Nonetheless, this January is all about Mean Girls.
To read more visit Deadline.