Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Sets New Animated Film Record For December

This past weekend saw the wide release of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Mule, and Mortal Engines.

In first place, we have Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which exploded onto the big screen with near-universal praise from critics. This resulted in a solid (though I wouldn’t call it exceptional) opening of $35.4 million. Though, given the film’s $90 million budget, this isn’t half-bad. Perhaps even most importantly is that the film received an A+ CinemaScore, meaning audiences who saw the film loved it, which is exactly what a movie like this needs to have a long tail at the box office. Plus, once this movie opens in more foreign territories, it is sure to do much better — at least that’s the hope, since Spidey is an international star. Additionally, the film broke records for best animated film opening in December, narrowly beating out Illumination’s Sing, which opened at $35.2 million.

In second place, we have Clint Eastwood’s The Mule, which reeled in a surprising $17.2 million. The film may have been relatively quiet on geek sites like ours, but it performed admirably enough with critics, sitting at 61% on Rotten Tomatoes — though it also scored an A- CinemaScore. With the movie costing $50 million to make, this isn’t a bad start, though we’ll see if it can compete with the impending blockbusters this coming week (though, given the difference in demographic, there may not be a lot of crossover).

In third place, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch is hanging on for dear life with $11.6 million in its sixth weekend, proving that the holiday cheer is alive and well in North America. The film has taken in over $372.7 million worldwide, which ain’t bad given its $75 million budget (but it does seem pretty low for Illumination standards, which may have more to do with its overseas appeal (or lack thereof) than anything else.

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Also opening this week was Mortal Engines, which flopped hard. It sported a $100 million budget, as well as the producorial/writing backing of Peter Jackson. That did it no good, and it opened to a paltry $7.5 million. It is predicted this movie will lose Universal $100 million, when all said and done. The film also had a B- CinemaScore, meaning audiences weren’t too thrilled with it (the few that saw it, at least). This mean, it won’t be around for very long, so if you want to see it in theaters, you’d better go soon. All in all, even as someone who wanted this movie to be good, they did an awful job of selling me on this world.

The top 10 domestic weekend box office estimates, listed in descending order, per data collected as of Sunday, December 16, are below:

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse – Sony – $35.4M
Mule, The – Warner Bros. – $17.2M
Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch – Universal – $11.6M
Ralph Breaks the Internet – Disney – $9.6M
Mortal Engines – Universal – $7.5M
Creed II – MGM – $5.4M
Bohemian Rhapsody – 20th Century Fox – $4.1M
Instant Family – Paramount – $3.7M
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald – Warner Bros. – $3.7M
Green Book – Universal – $2.8M

The top 10 worldwide weekend box office estimates, listed in descending order, per data collected as of Sunday, December 16, are below:

Aquaman – Warner Bros. – $126.4M
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse – Sony – $56.4M
Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch – Universal – $34.9M
Bohemian Rhapsody – 20th Century Fox – $23.2M
Mortal Engines – Universal – $19.0M
Ralph Breaks the Internet – Disney – $17.5M
Mule, The – Warner Bros. – $17.2M
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald – Warner Bros. – $15.5M
My Neighbor Totoro – CHINADIG – $13.0M
Dragon Ball Z Super: Broly – 20th Century Fox – $8.7M

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SOURCE: comScore, Box Office Mojo

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