‘Hunger Games’ prequel tops Thanksgiving box office, ‘Napoleon,’ ‘Wish’ battle for second
No one else volunteered as tribute over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend as Lionsgate’s “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” took home the box office title for the second straight week.
The YA novel adaptation brought in $42 million domestically over the long weekend, according to estimates from measurement firm Comscore. Its sophomore outing rivaled its opening weekend total of $44 million. The film has now brought in $98.37 million in the North American box office.
The race for second place was much tighter with Columbia Pictures and Apple’s historical epic “Napoleon” — produced by Apple and distributed by Sony Pictures — grabbing a five-day total of $32.5 million in North America and Disney’s fantasy adventure flick “Wish” hauling in $31.7 million.
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” exceeded its second weekend projections of $30 million. “Wish” fell short of its projected five-day total of $45 million to $50 million and “Napoleon” stood above its projected $22 million five-day total.
Vanessa Kirby plays Joséphine to Joaquin Phoenix’s Napoleon Bonaparte in this latest historical epic from director Ridley Scott.
Rounding out the top five at the domestic box office over the five-day weekend were Universal Pictures’ “Trolls Band Together,” which brought in $25.3 million in its second weekend for a North American cumulative of $64.47 million; and TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Thanksgiving,” which scared up $11.13 million in its second turn for a North American total of $24.19 million.
Directed by Ridley Scott, “Napoleon” follows the rise, fall, return and second fall of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix) and his roller-coaster love affair with his first wife Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby). The film also stars Tahar Rahim, Rupert Everett and Ludivine Sagnier.
The R-rated drama scored a middling 61% critics score and a 59% audience score on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. It garnered a B-minus grade from audiences polled by CinemaScore.
“Too often, though, ‘Napoleon’s’ withering condemnation of its subject feels less like a meaningful conclusion than a narrative dodge, a convenient way to sidestep a more trenchant, complicated look at Napoleon’s political legacy,” writes Times film critic Justin Chang.
We know the formula well — a dreamer, a king, a sidekick — and rarely does this overly cautious animated feature stray from it, resulting in magic on autopilot.
“It’s often been said, given Scott’s skills as a superb visual craftsman and cinematic logician, that he’s only ever as good as his material — a reductive formulation that happens to be true in this instance. But it’s also true that, not for the first time with a Scott picture, the theatrical version is just a teaser for what’s to come,” Chang continues. “A four-hour ‘Napoleon’ will stream on Apple TV+ at an unspecified date and, without judging it sight unseen, it seems reasonable to hope that it presents a richer, more cohesive and expansive vision of the story. Behind every so-so movie, after all, is a potentially great director’s cut.”
Opening next weekend in wide release are “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” which is being released through a direct distribution deal with AMC Theatres, Brainstorm Media’s “Rise of the Footsoldier: Vengeance” and Lionsgate’s “Silent Night.”
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