The domination of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon at the American box office was fleeting. The biopic by the English filmmaker emerged laminated from its second weekend of release. Renaissance, the recording of Beyoncé’s tour, left only crumbs of the great historical fresco.
The superstar’s concert amassed $21 million in revenue compared to $7.1 million for Napoléon, which collapsed by 66%! Finally perhaps caught up by the more than mixed reviews. The romance between the emperor and Joséphine de Beauharnais totaled 45.7 million revenues on American soil over ten days. Modest for a film that cost 200 million. The other big release of the previous Thanksgiving weekend, the Disney cartoon Wish, had a comparable (bad) fate and again lost more than 60% of spectators to only collect 7.4 million. Having had a disappointing and sluggish launch, this new tale will have a hard time relying on any word of mouth to recover.
The only blockbuster to stand out? The prologue to the Hunger Games saga The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird which in its third week only lost half of its audience. The story of the future president of Panem’s dive into the dark side takes second place on this weekend’s podium with 14 million in revenue for a total of 121 million.
In third place is the Japanese disaster film Godzilla Minus One. This part defied all odds by defeating the new American releases Silent Night and The Shift.
The weekend following the five-day Thanksgiving weekend is traditionally calm, even sluggish. Renaissance therefore brought a breath of fresh air to operators even if “Queen B” attracted far fewer fans than the other superstar of the moment, Taylor Swift. The recording of his tour The Eras Tour had come close to the $100 million mark for its launch.
No one expected Beyoncé to repeat this feat. His fan community is older and less viral. More than 70% of Renaissance spectators are women and just under half are between 25 and 34 years old. On the other hand, Renaissance was a flop abroad, reaching only $6.4 million in revenue.