Taylor Swift and AMC Theatres’ Eras Tour stayed dancing atop the domestic box office in its second weekend with an estimated $31 million for a domestic total of $129.8 million, while Martin Scorsese‘s Western adult drama Killers of the Flower Moon rode to a respectable $23 million in its big screen debut.
The superstar’s movie continues to break records, including becoming the first concert film in history to cross the $100 million mark domestically, not adjusted for inflation. It is also the first independently released film in a decade to make that much in only two weekends, according to AMC. Taylor Swift: Eras Tour tumbled 67 percent, which is a relatively good hold for the genre. The $15 million pic was self-financed by Swift.
Flower Moon — starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro — was never expected to sing more loudly than Eras Tour considering it is an adult drama, among other challenges. Yet it delivered the third-best nationwide opening of Scorsese’s career behind 2010’s Shutter Island ($41 million) and 2006’s The Departed ($26.9 million), not adjusted for inflation. It also ties with The Departed and Goodfellas in receiving the best CinemaScores of his career, an A-.
But the pressure is on, considering Scorsese’s Western true-crime drama cost Apple’s film studio around $200 million to make (at the same time, the usual box office metrics don’t apply to the tech giant). Apple Original Films is counting on Flower Moon to enjoy a long and steady run in theaters as Oscar season unfolds, pointing to strong reviews and audience exit polls. The tech giant picked up the project when Paramount, Scorsese’s go-studio, passed. Later, Paramount signed on to distribute the movie with Apple handling all marketing and publicity.
A major challenge for the film is Flower Moon‘s hefty running time of three hours and 26 minutes (Eras Tour isn’t short either, running two hours and 48 minutes).
Adult dramas became an endangered species during the pandemic and have yet to be taken off the list (Christopher Nolan and Universal’s Oppenheimer being a major exception). Flower Moon indeed skewed older: 56 percent of ticket buyers were over 30, including at least 35 percent 45 and older. This latter demo is notorious for not rushing out on opening weekend. In regards to gender breakdown, the movie skewed notably male (62 percent).
Another challenge: DiCaprio — one of the world’s biggest movie stars — and the rest of the cast haven’t been able to do any publicity since the SAG-AFTRA strike commenced July 14. Apple was able to bank some interviews previous to the strike and generated headlines around the world when it took Killers of the Flower Moon to the Cannes Film Festival in late May but didn’t reap the benefits of a final publicity blitz by the actors. (Scorsese, who has a strong fan base, instead did the heavy lifting solo.)
Overseas, Flower Moon debuted to a somewhat muted $21 million from 63 markets for a global bow of $44 million. Westerns can be a tough sell overseas and not having DiCaprio available to do publicity no doubt hurt. It fared best in Europe, where it placed No. 1 in several markets, including France ($2.6 million) and Germany ($1.3 million).
Flower Moon is based on David Grann’s book about the murders of Osage Nation tribe members in the 1920s after oil was found on their Oklahoma land. Imperative Entertainment, one of the film’s producers, won a bidding war for rights to the book before Scorsese boarded the project.
The film did particularly well in the south-central part of the country, as well as in the West. Imax and other premium formats ponied up 37 percent of the gross. They notably over-indexed in the western and south-central portions of the U.S., while under-indexing in the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest. Top markets include such Scorsese strongholds as Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston. Other top markets included Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma, where interest was high because of the subject matter. In terms of ethnic breakdown, 7 percent of the audience surveyed by PostTrak were Native American/Other, which is nearly double the norm. White moviegoers made up 60 percent of the audience, followed by Latino moviegoers (17 percent), Black moviegoers (8 percent) and Asian moviegoers (also 8 percent), according to PostTrak.
Imax screens contributed 14 percent of the overall global gross, with other premium large format screens, including Dolby Cinema, accounted for percent.
This weekend marks a turning point for Apple’s film ambitions. Killers of the Flower Moon is arguably the biggest event film to date from a tech giant to be given a conventional theatrical release versus going relatively quickly to streaming. Earlier this year, Apple Original Films revealed it intends to spend $1 billion a year to produce movies intended for theatrical, both to boost its streaming service and strengthen its profile in theaters.
Apple’s next major theatrical test after Killers of the Flowers Moon is director Ridley Scott’s historic epic Napoleon, starring Joaquin Pheonix in the titular role. Apple and Sony open the film Nov. 22 on the eve of Thanksgiving. With a slowdown of studio films due to the pandemic and Hollywood’s labor strikes, cinemas are clamoring for content.
Universal, Blumhouse and Morgan Creek’s Exorcist: The Believer placed a distant third with $6.7 million in its third weekend for a domestic total of $54.2 million. Globally, it cleared $100 million after earning another $8.2 million from 80 markets for a foreign tally of $54.3 million and $107.6 million globally.
Paramount’s family pic Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie held in well at No. 4 with roughly $4.5 million for a domestic cume of $56 million through its fourth weekend. It earned another $11.7 million internationally for a stellar foreign total of $92.3 million and $148.4 million globally.
Disney’s annual rerelease of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas did enough business to round out the top five domestic chart with $4.1 million.
Overseas, DreamWorks Animation and Universal’s Trolls Band Together continued its slow international rollout before opening Nov. 17 in North America. The film earned $14.3 million from 26 markets in its sophomore outing for a cume of $16 million. The threequel, once again voice-starring Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake, debuted No. 1 in the U.K. ahead of Flower Moon and Eras Tour with $4 million.
A version of this story was originally published Oct. 21 at 8:47 a.m.
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