Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé glittered in theaters this weekend, with an estimated $27.4 million in global ticket sales through Sunday, including $21 million in the U.S. and Canada.
Comscore projects that Renaissance will finish with the best domestic box office gross for a post-Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the last 20 years.
The film, showcasing entertainer Beyoncé’s 12-nation, 39-city blockbuster world tour, was directed, written, and produced by the artist.
The film comes closely on the heels of The Eras Tour, the box office-busting concert film by Taylor Swift.
Beyoncé’s film is expected to draw 900,000 viewers this weekend, at an average ticket price of $23.32 (compared with $20.78 for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour), according to EntTelligence data analytics.
Renaissance is drawing audiences that skew slightly older, more diverse, more male (31% versus 22% for Swift’s movie), and less family-oriented than Swift’s PG-rated film, EntTelligence said.
Renaissance is AMC Theatres Distribution second straight No. 1 domestic box office opening after The Eras Tour, which officially opened Oct. 13.
The fact that both opened at number one “is a testament to the drawing power of popular musical acts,” which is great not only for theaters but for their record labels, Comscore’s senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian told Barron’s.
Beyoncé’s film also generated $4.6 million of IMAX’s North American box office ($5.1 million globally, the second biggest IMAX global opening weekend for a musical concert or documentary.)
Swift’s film, which was the 15th highest-grossing film this weekend, has pulled in $178.8 million domestically and $249.5 million worldwide, according to BoxOfficeMojo.
Internationally, Beyoncé’s film is expected to draw an additional estimated $6.4 million in 94 markets this weekend, and is rolling out to several more markets in coming weeks, including Brazil, Hong Kong, Italy, Spain, and Thailand,
Comscore
‘s Dergarabedian said.
Second place in U.S. box office was
Lions Gate’s
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, with $14.5 million this weekend and $121.2 million cumulatively. Toho International’s Godzilla Minus One was third with $11 million.
Fourth place was Universal’s Trolls Band Together, with $7.6 million domestically this weekend and $74.8 million through Sunday. Disney’s Wish earned $7.4 million in its second weekend for a domestic total of nearly $42 million.
This weekend’s overall total estimated three-day domestic box office of $94.7 million. So far this year, domestic box office sales of $8.37 billion is 23% higher than last year, Dergarabedian said.
Write to Janet H. Cho at [email protected]
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