The Beekeeper is claiming victory over Mean Girls at the weekend box office with an estimated $7.4 million from 3,337 theaters, but the Jason Statham-led action pic can’t bring home the honey just yet.
Rival studios show the two movies in a dead heat, while Paramount is claiming victory with $7.3 million from 3,544 locations. The rightful order will be decided Monday when final grosses for the Jan. 27-29 frame are tallied. One advantage for Mean Girls: Sunday’s two NFL championship games will pose tough competition for Beekeeper.
If Statham’s pic prevails, it will be the first time it has beat Mean Girls and topped the domestic chart.
Both films are in their third weekend, and their domination underscores the worrisome situation facing cinema operators as the production pipeline slows to a trickle because of production delays due to last year’s strikes. It is the second weekend in a row that there are no new nationwide releases.
Mean Girls‘ domestic tally stands at an estimated $60.8 million domestically and $22.6 million overseas for a worldwide cumulative of $83.4 million.
From Miramax, Beekeeper jumped the $100 million mark globally upon finishing Sunday with a domestic total of $42.3 million and $61.9 million overseas for an estimated global tally of $104.2 million.
A trio of Christmas holdovers rounded out the top five; Wonka, Migration and Anyone But You.
The specialty box office was anything but glum between the new Hindi-language military action pic Fighter and Oscar contenders picking up nominations on Jan. 23.
Fighter, from VIVE, took off nicely with roughly $3.8 million from 662 locations, good enough to place No. 6.
Searchlight’s Poor Things — which landed 11 Oscar noms, including best picture – added 900 theaters for a total count of 2,300. The movie earned a strong $3 million for the weekend for an estimated domestic tally of $24.8 million (it was up 45 percent from the previous weekend). Overseas, it sports a $26.3 million foreign total for a global cume of $51.1 million. In many markets, the movie is turning in best-ever grosses for Yorgos Lanthimos.
Poor Things came in No. 7, followed by fellow Oscar contender American Fiction, which is also competing for best picture amid a handful of other categories. From Amazon MGM, Cord Jefferson‘s film saw a 65 percent spike, earning $2.9 million for a domestic total of $11.8 million. American Fiction had held back pending nominations, but added 852 cinemas this weekend for a total count of 1,702.
A24’s The Zone of Interest, another multi-Oscar nominee, is still taking things slowly. The best picture contender did add 233 theaters for a total count of 315, and earned a promising $1.1 million for a domestic tally of $3 million.
None of these latter three films are available to watch in the home. The same cannot be said for fellow best-picture contender Oppenheimer, but that didn’t stop Universal and director Christopher Nolan from rereleasing the movie in more than 1,200 Imax and premium format locations. Oppenheimer, which leads all nominated films with 13 Oscar nods, earned a respectable $1 million from 1,269 locations.
One film snubbed by Oscar voters, Ava DuVernay‘s Origin, fared well in its second weekend, earning $1.5 million from 664 theaters for an early cumulative of $2.5 million for the filmmakers and Neon.
Nominated for best visual effects at the Oscars, Godzilla Minus One saw a boost when adding a black and white version to the mix. The Japanese film earned an estimated $2.8 million from 2,051 runs.
Jan. 28, 2:00 p.m.: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Origin‘s distributor. THR regrets the error.
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