Last weekend, the North American film market was as cold as a late spring. Prior to this, the worst weekend for the total North American box office so far this year was the weekend of the American football "Super Bowl" finals in February, which was about 54.2 million US dollars. This weekend coincided with the Oscars ceremony, and it seems that the total box office is about 55 million US dollars. Did everyone stay at home to watch the Oscars live?
Back in the 1980s, the Oscars were usually held on Monday nights because film companies and theaters did not want the awards ceremony to affect box office revenue. However, at that time, the Oscars could basically attract about 50 million Americans to watch the live broadcast, but in recent years its ratings have dropped significantly, with less than 20 million. In other words, movie box office is unlikely to be affected by the Oscars, and the poor performance may be due to the lack of charm of the works themselves to make the audience pay.
Captain America 4 poster
In this way, Captain America 4 continued to top the box office charts with $15 million last weekend. The second place was the new film Last Breath, which opened in 3,018 theaters in North America. Starring Woody Harrison and Simu Liu, the film tells the story of a deep-sea diver being rescued after being trapped underwater. Although it has a 75% freshness on the film review website Rotten Tomatoes, it only received $7.8 million in opening box office over the weekend.
The Last Breath poster
The scale of screenings of "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" in North America began to shrink this weekend, from more than 900 theaters to about 600 theaters. The box office of the film was 2.9 million US dollars in three days over the weekend, ranking seventh on the weekend box office list. Of course, the box office performance of the film in North American theaters so far has been close to 20 million US dollars, which is a very good result for Chinese animated films or even Asian animated films. In contrast, the newly released Japanese animation "Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX Prologue" this weekend was released. This work was just released in Japan on January 17. It is the pilot film of the new "Mobile Suit Gundam" series of animated series to be broadcast this spring. It was introduced by GKIDS Films, a company specializing in the distribution of Japanese animation in North America. It entered 784 theaters in North America over the weekend and only earned 910,000 US dollars in the opening box office, ranking tenth on the weekend box office list.
Poster of Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King
Moreover, Nezha 2 has entered the top ten of the North American weekend box office chart for three consecutive times. In the past, Japanese or Indian films occasionally entered the chart for two consecutive weeks, but it is rare to enter the top ten for three consecutive weeks. Godzilla 1.0, which was released at the end of 2023, entered the top ten of the North American weekend box office chart for four consecutive weeks. I wonder if Nezha 2 will have a chance to tie this achievement next week.
It is also worth mentioning that the film "No Other Land" just won the best documentary feature at this year's Oscars. Previously, the film had won many awards, including the best documentary feature at the Berlin Film Festival, the best documentary feature at the National Society of Film Critics, and the best documentary feature at the European Film Awards. However, because the story is about the sensitive Israeli-Palestinian issue, it has not yet found a distributor in the United States. The film's producers can only rely on their own efforts and rent venues in various parts of the United States to hold screenings. Even so, after this weekend, the film's total North American box office has reached nearly 420,000 US dollars, which is still the highest among the five documentary feature films nominated for Oscars this year.
Poster of "Only Home"
On the other hand, such figures also reflect the cruel reality that documentaries are finding it increasingly difficult to find audiences in American theaters. The other four nominated films, "The Music of the Coup," "The Porcelain Wars," "Sugarcane," and "Black Box Diaries," all earned only $200,000 to $300,000 at the North American box office. According to statistics, the best-selling documentary at the North American box office in 2024 was "Am I Racist?", a right-wing political documentary in the United States. Thanks to the strong support of Trump supporters, the film earned $12.3 million at the North American box office.
