Warner Bros. Pictures’ Wonka charmed its way to the top of the North American box office on its three-day opening weekend, with an estimated $39 million in sales, according to Comscore.
Wonka was also the golden ticket globally, with $53.6 million in international box office this weekend, and $92.6 million globally, for a total cumulative take of $151.4 million in 78 markets, Comscore said.
For Hollywood, the weekend helped boost hopes for a strong finish to the year. Wonka is the first major release since the end of the actors’ strike, and studios and exhibitors have been targeting $9 billion in box office sales for 2023.
This weekend’s overall estimated three-day domestic box office is $77.8 million, putting the industry on pace for $8.58 billion in sales so far this year through Sunday, up 22% compared with this time last year, Comscore said.
Wonka, a musical explaining how the inventor, magician, and chocolate maker becomes Willy Wonka, was a risk for Warner Bros. because the genre hasn’t performed strongly in theaters. It relied on the charisma of its star, Timothée Chalamet, portraying Roald Dahl’s young chocolatier.
Moviegoer data from EntTelligence projected Wonka will draw approximately three million viewers this weekend, or 49% of all weekend foot traffic. About 62% of movie goers weren’t family members, compared with a traditional family-centric film, according to EntTelligence.
“For a PG film, I think it transcended beyond traditional family audiences,” EnTelligence’s Chief Strategy Officer Steve Buck told Barron’s. “We saw that in our data. The film had a crossover effect…[attracting] families as well as date-night type moviegoers.”
Audiences paid an average ticket price of $13.20 for Wonka, and 34% of the audience saw it in premium mode.
The film also stars Calah Lane, Olivia Colman, Tom Davis, Rowan Atkinson, Keegan-Michael Key, and Hugh Grant as an indignant Oompa-Loompa. The movie was co-written and directed by Paul King, who also directed and co-wrote the first two Paddington movies.
Wonka follows the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder, and the 2005 version directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp. The movie covers the period before the events in Dahl’s 1964 book, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
Second at the weekend box office was Lions Gate Entertainment’s Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, with $5.8 million domestically over the weekend and $145.2 million cumulative through Sunday.
In third place was GKIDS’ The Boy and the Heron, with $5.2 million this weekend and $23.1 million in cumulative North American box office; and in fourth place was Emick’s Godzilla Minus One ($4.9 million over the weekend and $34.3 million cumulative).
Fifth was Universal’s Trolls Band Together, with $4 million this weekend, ($88.7 million cumulative), and Disney’s Wish was sixth with $3.2 million ($54.3 million cume).
Write to Janet H. Cho at [email protected]
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