Monday Box Office Report – Fantastic Beasts has a fantastic opening

Looks like that Harry Potter magic has struck again… even without any Harry Potter anywhere in sight. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, the first chapter in a planned new five-film series set 70 years before the events of the Harry Potter books/movies, opened in the US this weekend past and its box office numbers were… fantastic. With muggles streaming in to watch the film, scripted by creator JK Rowling herself, Fantastic Beasts opened to $75 million.

This is a little off the pace of the first Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which opened to $90 million domestically back in 2001. That gap increases dramatically when compared to the last film in the previous franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part II, which debuted with $169 million domestically five years ago. This already has some (in my opinion, ridiculous) doomsayers talking about the viability of five films, as they would have liked it to open north of $90 million. But they will more than likely be shutting up promptly when you you take into account that Fantastic Beasts also brought in a beastly $143 million from the international box office.

Out of the 63 international markets where the film debuted, it didn’t just end up at the top of charts in several of them, but in a number of the bigger regions it actually outperformed all the previous Harry Potter entries. It’s still set to open in a number of other markets this coming weekend, including the world’s respective second and third largest box offices in China and Japan (oh, and of course South Africa), and there’s the US Thanksgiving Holiday weekend which should also give it a big push. With all that combined, expect the $218 million it has already made globally to increase rather rapidly in the next few weeks.

Unfortunately, things didn’t look as fantastic for the other weekend newcomers, meaning that most of last week’s holdover titles each just slide down a single notch on the totem pole. This means that new teen dramedy Edge of Seventeen, which has been racking up amazing reviews, opened to a lackluster 7th place best, not even able to crack the $5 million. Similarly, the Miles Teller led true story boxing drama Bleed For This turned out to be a lightweight as it barely scraped up $2.35 million despite being quite well received by both critics and audiences.

Here is what’s happening on the rest of the US chart:

• 01. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (NE)

Weekend gross: $75.000 million
Percentage change: NA
Total domestic gross: $75.000 million
Total international gross: $143.000 million

• 02. Doctor Strange (LW: 1)

Weekend gross: $17.676 million
Percentage change: -58.9%
Total domestic gross: $181.542 million
Total international gross: $390.000 million

• 03. Trolls (LW: 2)

Weekend gross: $17.500 million
Percentage change: -50%
Total domestic gross: $116.214 million
Total international gross: $145.127 million

• 04. Arrival (LW: 3)

Weekend gross: $11.800 million
Percentage change: -51%
Total domestic gross: $43.370 million
Total international gross: $10.845 million

• 05. Almost Christmas (LW: 4)

Weekend gross: $7.040 million
Percentage change: -53.5%
Total domestic gross: $25.420 million
Total international gross: NA

• 06. Hacksaw Ridge (LW: 5)

Weekend gross: $6.750 million
Percentage change: -36.5%
Total domestic gross: $42.854 million
Total international gross: NA

• 07. Edge of Seventeen (NE)

Weekend gross: $7.825 million
Percentage change: NA
Total domestic gross: $7.825 million
Total international gross: NA

• 08. Bleed For This (NE)

Weekend gross: $2.357 million
Percentage change: NA
Total domestic gross: $2.357 million
Total international gross: NA

• 09. The Accountant (LW: 6)

Weekend gross: $2.115 million
Percentage change: -52.1%
Total domestic gross: $81.252 million
Total international gross: $57.300 million

• 10. Shut In (LW: 7)

Weekend gross: $1.600 million
Percentage change: -55.7%
Total domestic gross: $6.036 million
Total international gross: NA

(LW = Last Week, NE = New Entry)

Last Updated: November 21, 2016