Box Office Battle: Hunger Games prequel wins Thanksgiving weekend

“Box Office Battle” is The Fly’s weekly roundup of what movies topped the weekend’s box office.

LionsGate’s (LGF.B) “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” remained atop at the domestic box office with another $42M for the long Thanksgiving weekend and $28.8M for the three days, finishing Sunday with a domestic cume of almost $100M and $197.3M globally. Overall, the 2023 Thanksgiving box office was up 40%-plus from the previous year. However, it still fell short of pre-pandemic times, with revenue down 34% from 2019.

BOX OFFICE RUNNER-UPS: Ridley Scott’s historical epic “Napoleon” placed number 2 with a $20.4M debut. Behind it was Disney’s (DIS) “Wish,” which had an estimated debut of $19.7M.  Comcast (CMCSA) subsidiary Universal’s “Trolls Band Together” placed number 4 grossed about $17.5M for a domestic tally of $64.5M. Rounding out the top five, TriStar Pictures’ “Thanksgiving” earned an estimated $7.3M from 3,204 locations.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE:

1. “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” – $28.8M
2. “Napoleon” – $20.4M
3. “Wish” – $19.7M
4. “Trolls Band Together” – $17.5M
5. “Thanksgiving” – $7.3M

Other publicly traded companies in filmmaking include Paramount (PARA), Sony (SONY), Warner Bros. (WBD), Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) with its MGM Holdings.