Sunday Update:

The third time’s the charm for Disney/Pixar’s Coco, which came in slightly above its Sunday estimate with $18.4 million. It becomes the first film to spend three weekends in the top spot since The Hitman’s Bodyguard in August and early September.

Warner Bros.’ Justice League also slightly beat its Sunday estimate with $9.6 million. However, it experienced the steepest percentage decline of any film in the top 10 for the third consecutive frame, as the film drops off quickly.

A24’s quirky comedy The Disaster Artist, starring James Franco, began in fourth place during its first weekend of wide release with $6.3 million. That’s especially impressive considering it was playing in only about a quarter as many theaters as any other film in the top 7.

Broad Green Pictures’ Just Getting Started never really got started, as the comedy starring Morgan Freeman and Tommy Lee Jones opened with a 10th place start of only $3.2 million.

The top 10 films this weekend earned $70.6 million. That’s 27 percent behind last weekend and 16 percent behind the same weekend last year. Year-to-date box office is down 4.0 percent behind last year, but that uptick (from 4.1 percent behind last week) marks the closest the YTD has come to even since August.

The full table of weekend actuals is below, after our Sunday update featuring further analysis.

— written by Boxoffice staff writer Jesse Rifkin

Sunday Update:

It was a three-peat this weekend for Disney-Pixar’s Coco, which finished at No. 1 once again with $18.3 million. That brings the hit toon’s total domestic gross to $135.5 million, only slightly behind last year’s Moana, which had $144.7 million by the same point in its run. This will be the final frame at the top for the critically-acclaimed title, as Star Wars: The Last Jedi blasts into multiplexes next weekend.

With no major wide releases since Thanksgiving, the Top 3 films remained unchanged for the third consecutive week. In second place, Justice League brought in another $9.5 million in its fourth frame, giving it $212 million so far. The DCEU title has been a disappointing performer for Warner Bros. this season. By point of comparison, Wonder Woman had reached $318 million by the same point in its release, while Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice had reached $311 million. Without the supersized opening weekend of the former or the staying power of the latter, Justice League is destined to fall well short of the $300 million mark by the end of its run.

In third place, Wonder added another $8.4 million in its fourth weekend, impressively finishing neck-and-neck with Justice League despite the latter’s much-larger opening ($93 million vs. $27 million). Word of mouth on the Lionsgate title has been superb, allowing its weekend-to-weekend drops to remain consistently low. Its total gross now stands at $100.3 million – a very impressive number given its reported $20 million budget.

Crashing the Top 4 was biographical dramedy The Disaster Artist, which expanded to 840 theaters for a $6.4 million total (for a solid $7,661 per theater average) following a terrific limited debut last weekend. Directed by James Franco – who stars as would-be visionary Tommy Wiseau, director of the so-bad-it’s-good cult film The Room – the film benefitted from a heavy marketing push by A24, which has a successful track record of selling unconventional movies to mainstream audiences. Heavy Oscar buzz, mainly positive reviews, and strong social media activity were also factors that helped the film break through.

Fifth place went to Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok, which added another $6.3 million to its super heroic total. The Marvel epic now stands at $301.2 million after six weeks – the first time a standalone Thor film has crossed the $300 million threshold. And it did so just in the nick of time, as Star Wars is primed to cut into its audience in a big way next weekend.

Paramount comedy Daddy’s Home 2 banked another $6 million in sixth place, giving the Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg sequel $91.1 million after five weeks of release. In seventh, Fox’s Murder on the Orient Express took in another $5.1 million, giving it $92.7 million so far. Look for both films to cross the $100 million mark by next weekend.

In eighth place, Sony’s animated comedy The Star dropped just 10% to bring in another $3.6 million, giving it a tidy $32.2 million so far. Despite the presence of Coco in the marketplace, the film – made on a reported $20 million budget – has managed to carve out a niche with faith-based audiences this season.

Ninth place went to A24’s sleeper hit Lady Bird, which grossed $3.5 million after further expanding to 1,557 screens. Directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Saoirse Ronan, the acclaimed comedy-drama has performed reasonably well in its wide expansion and has taken in $22.3 million in five weeks of release. With Oscar buzz at a high pitch, it will be interesting to see how the film performs in the coming weeks.

Squeaking into tenth was newcomer Just Getting Started, which grossed just $3.1 million in 2,161 locations. Starring Morgan Freeman, Tommy Lee Jones, and Rene Russo, the action-comedy failed to gain traction in a crowded marketplace thanks to dismal reviews and a dearth of pre-release buzz despite coming from Tin Cup and Bull Durham writer/director Ron Shelton. While it was going for the same audience that made films like this year’s Going in Style and 2013’s Last Vegas into modest hits, the Broad Green release simply couldn’t break through with so many buzzworthy titles competing for attention.

Falling just outside the Top 10 was Fox Searchlight’s acclaimed drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which added nearly 200 more locations and finished the weekend with $2.8 million, good for $18.3 million after five weeks. Further down the chart, Sony Pictures’ would-be awards contender Roman J. Israel, Esq. continued to stumble in wide release, banking just $860,000 from 1,669 locations. The Denzel Washington prestige pic is a rare flop for star Denzel Washington, who scored a hit this time last year with the Oscar-nominated Fences.

Limited Release: 

In its opening weekend, Neon’s I, Tonya grossed an impressive $245,602 on just four screens, good for a robust $61,400 per-theater average. The Tonya Harding biopic starring Margot Robbie as the disgraced figure skater has been garnering awards-season buzz, mainly for the performances of Robbie and Allison Janney as Harding’s brutal mother. Reviews for the film have been strong.

Fox Searchlight’s The Shape of Water expanded to 41 locations and took in $1.1 million for a stellar $26,829 per-theater average, giving it $1.3 million in its first ten days. The fantasy-drama has benefitted from solid critical reviews and the name value of its star director Guillermo del Toro, who previously scored an awards-season hit back in 2006 with the Spanish-language fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth.

In its third week of limited release, Sony Classics’ Call Me By Your Name added five screens and grossed another $290,101, giving it a superb $32,345 per-screen average and a total of $1.3 million to date. The drama, about a romantic relationship that develops between a 17-year-old boy and a 24-year-old male graduate student during a summer in Italy, has been finishing on many year-end Top 10 lists and should continue to benefit from persistent Oscar buzz.

Focus Features expanded its Winston Churchill biopic Darkest Hour to 53 locations, where it grossed $777,000 for a good $14,660 per-screen average and $1.2 million to date.

Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel was sluggish in its expansion to 47 screens, bringing in $155,805 for a per-theater average of $3,315. The latest from the controversial director likely suffered from lackluster reviews, which rank with some of the worst of his career. Last year’s Cafe Society, by comparison, did much better with critics and grossed $849,000 on about the same number of screens in its sophomore frame.

Overseas Update:

Coco continued to do strong business overseas, bringing in another $55.3 million in international territories and topping $100 million in the all-important Chinese marketplace (by comparison, Moana finished with just $32 million there). The film now boasts an international cume to date of $254 million and a global total of $389.5 million – already more than The Good Dinosaur made in its entire run.

Justice League brought in another $15.4 million in foreign markets, bringing its worldwide gross north of the $600 million mark. Despite falling short domestically, the film has been keeping up with its DCEU predecessors Wonder Woman and Batman v Superman overseas. With $401 million internationally thus far, it will soon top Wonder Woman’s $412 million overseas total, though that film performed far better in North America.

— written by Boxoffice staff writer Chris Eggertsen

Weekend Actuals (Domestic)

FRI, DEC. 8 – SUN, DEC. 10

Studio Weekend Estimates (Domestic)

FRI, DEC. 8 – SUN, DEC. 10