The second week of January has already been beating records of its predecessor years. The domestic box office of this new year has broken a 2020s record with 17 movies grossing over 1 million dollars during the second weekend in January. For instance, Mean Girls tops the box office with $28 million, followed by The Beekeeper with $16.7 million and Wonka with $8.4 million. For the first time since 2019, many movies have reached the $1 million mark on the second January weekend.
It is interesting to see two musicals on this list. Mean Girls and Wonka are both wide-release musicals, with Mean Girls being an adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name which was an adaptation of the 2004 hit teen comedy. On the other hand, Wonka is an original musical starring Timothee Chalamet essaying a young Willy Wonka in his origin story – a prequel to the 1971 Roald Dahl adaptation Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
According to Deadline, with Mean Girls taking the lead, 16 other movies have grossed over $1 million dollars during its opening weekend. This is the first time for such high numbers since January of 2019 where 18 movies grossed $1 million.
However, this also indicates that these $1 million movies from 2023 such as Wonka are acting as mere placeholders since the 2024 slate isn’t as exciting and doesn’t have any major releases this coming month. Although February sees the release of Henry Cavill’s spy comedy, the Argylle and the Marvel movie Madame Web, the next major blockbuster must be more or less march’s Dune: Part 2.
Overall, the Mean Girls and Wonka box office success is going to be followed by a dearth of content owing partially to the 2023 Hollywood writers strike which delayed the production and promotion process for many movies, leaving them in-progress. However, with the strike over, 2024 is expected to see some light at the end of the tunnel soon.
