It’s been a busy few weeks for exhibition, with a number of family-friendly titles—including Moana 2, Mufasa: The Lion King, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and Wicked Part 1—breaking records and keeping theaters busy as we move through the holiday season. Christmas weekend brings more adult-oriented fare to domestic theaters, with a remake of a horror classic, an erotic thriller, and a musical biopic all opening on Wednesday, December 25.
All forecast ranges below are for the three-day (FSS) Christmas weekend frame.
Long Range Forecast — December 25, 2024
Nosferatu | Focus Features
Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $12M – $18M (Three-Day Weekend)
Nosferatu is the fourth feature from director Robert Eggers, who burst onto the scene with 2016’s The Witch ($8.8M domestic opening on 2,046 screens, $25.1M domestic total) and subsequently turned in arthouse hits The Lighthouse ($10.8M domestic total; platform release) and The Northman ($12.2M domestic opening; $34.2M domestic total). Robert Eggers’ latest features an ensemble cast led by Bill Skarsgård, Lily-Rose Depp, and others, enhancing potential appeal to young adult audiences.
Whether or not Eggers’ interpretation of the IP can translate to mainstream audiences remains to be seen in future marketing. Focus, which released The Northman, has certainly opted for high visibility with Nosferatu‘s Christmas release date, though that may very well be offset by increased competition, both from fellow Christmas releases and family-friendly holdovers. Christmas (or the few days before) isn’t a common release date for horror titles; in fact, there have been no new horror titles opening in wide release on Christmas over the last decade.
Babygirl | A24
Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $3M – $5M (Three-Day Weekend)
Nicole Kidman stars in this erotic thriller about a woman having an affair with a younger man. This is A24’s third collaboration with director Halina Reijn, who previously helmed 2019’s erotic thriller Instinct and 2022’s horror film Bodies Bodies Bodies ($226,653 domestic opening on six screens, $11.4M domestic total); Instinct was made before Bodies Bodies Bodies and was acquired by A24 after the success of the later film to screen on their digital platform.
It’s not a particularly rare thing to see an R-rated film released around Christmas; the last decade has given us Anyone but You (12/22/23; $6M domestic opening, $88.3M domestic total), Babylon (12/23/22, $3.6M domestic opening, $15.3M domestic total), Promising Young Woman (12/25/20, $719,305 domestic opening, $6.4M domestic total), and Vice (12/25/18, $7.7M domestic opening, $47.8M domestic total), among others. In terms of content and tone, Babygirl looks most similar to Promising Young Woman—but, seeing as Promising Young Woman came out in 2020, with the industry still in Covid-induced shambles, the comp isn’t particularly useful here. More of interest is last year’s The Iron Claw, also an R-rated title released close to Christmas (12/22) by A24; it opened to $4.8M domestically and largely failed to catch on with mainstream audiences, leaving domestic theaters in early March with $35M total.
A Complete Unknown | Searchlight Pictures
Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $15M – $20M (Three-Day Weekend)
There is a relatively recent (post-pandemic) comp for James Mangold’s Bob Dylan bioipc A Complete Unknown, but it’s not exactly a hopeful one: TriStar biopic Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody ($4.7M domestic opening, $23.7M domestic total), released on Christmas 2022 and mostly swallowed up by Avatar: The Way of Water and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Musical biopics have had an inconsistent performance at the box office over the last ten years. Some, like 2022’s Elvis ($31.2M domestic opening, $151 domestic total), 2024’s Bob Marley: One Love ($28.6M domestic opening, $96.8M domestic total), 2019’s Rocketman ($25.7M domestic opening, $96.3M domestic total), and 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody ($51M domestic opening, $216.6M domestic total), catch on with mainstream audiences. Others—like I Wanna Dance with Somebody, 2021’s Respect ($8.8M domestic opening, $24.2M domestic total), and 2024’s Back to Black ($2.8M domestic opening, $6.1M domestic total)—decidedly do not. In the “Pros” column for A Complete Unknown are the starpower of lead Timothée Chalamet and the presence in the director’s chair of Mangold, whose 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line ($22.3M domestic opening, $119.5M domestic total) is among the most well-regarded musical biopics.
Tracking Updates [as of Dec 13]
| Release Date | Title | Opening Weekend Range | Distributor |
| 12/13/24 | Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim | $6 – $10M | Warner Bros. |
| 12/13/24 | Kraven the Hunter | $15 – $20M | Sony / Columbia |
| 12/20/24 | Homestead | $3 – $6M | Angel Studios |
| 12/20/24 | Mufasa: The Lion King | $45 – $65M | Disney |
| 12/20/24 | Sonic the Hedgehog 3 | $65 – $85M | Paramount |
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