The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes tops charts again while Wish flops

Disney CEO Bob Iger is likely shitting bricks right now. After a string of flops for the mega-corporation this year at the box office, it was looking likely that Disney Animation Studios’ Wish would be a surefire number-one hit. As it turns out, despite strong audience reception, the film mostly fizzled this weekend. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes retained the number one spot and is well on its way to being profitable.

Hunger Games nabbed $28.8 million this weekend and has nearly topped $100 million in domestic gross. While that certainly isn’t a smash hit, the film had a modest $100 million budget. With overseas gross, Lionsgate has a small hit on its hands. In second place came Napoleon, the new Ridley Scott historical fiction drama, with $20.4 million. Normally this would be really dire against the film’s $200 million budget, but it’s also a solid outing for a biopic with an R-rating. The film has also become Ridley Scott’s biggest opening weekend thus far, so that’s a plus.

As for Wish, the $200 million film only drew in $19.5 million over the three-day weekend. Having opened on Wednesday to capitalize on Thanksgiving, the film did fare a little better with $31.7 million domestically, but that’s a far cry from being profitable. Things do not look any better when accounting for international gross, with Wish having only earned $17.3 million thus far.

The rest of the top 10 is, as expected, holdovers from prior weeks. The Marvels has fallen even further in the charts and came in at sixth this weekend with $6.4 million. It might be time for Disney and Marvel to rethink its strategy with that franchise.

Here are the top 10 films for the weekend of November 24-26, 2023. All totals listed are domestic:

1. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – $28.8 million
2. Napoleon – $20.4 million
3. Wish – $19.5 million
4. Trolls Band Together – $17.5 million
5. Thanksgiving – $7.1 million
6. The Marvels – $6.4 million
7. The Holdovers – $2.7 million
8. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour – $2.3 million
9. Five Nights at Freddy’s – $1.75 million
10. Saltburn – $1.73 million