New York (CNN) — Beyoncé was crowned “queen of the box office” after her concert movie topped the box office in its opening weekend.
“Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” a documentary about the artist’s record-breaking world tour, raked in $21 million since its Friday opening, according to BoxOfficeMojo. It opened in roughly 2,500 theaters through an exclusive distribution deal with AMC Theatres.
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” placed second, grossing $14.5 million and “Godzilla Minus One” debuted with an $11 million opening.
Notably, “Renaissance” became the first film in two decades to cross the $20 million benchmark for its opening weekend following Thanksgiving, a typically sluggish one. The 2003 release of Tom Cruise’s “The Last Samurai” was the last to accomplish the feat.
“Renaissance” is the second concert film to dominate the box office this year, with Taylor Swift releasing “Eras Tour” also exclusively through AMC, rather than a traditional Hollywood distributor, effectively cutting out the middleman and securing higher paydays for the artists and their teams.
Both films are sparking some life in the box office, which has been dominated by flops in November including “The Marvels” and “Wish.”
Domestic theaters grossed about $553.6 million this November, a 12% decline from last year and still more than $400 million short of pre-pandemic levels, according to data from research firm Comscore. Between 2009 and 2019, Novembers were a reliably lucrative month and could be counted on to rake in nearly a billion dollars, owing in part to the long Thanksgiving weekend.
Other key factors contributing to the disappointing box office included the SAG-AFTRA strike, which prevented actors from promoting upcoming movies, as well as the anticipated sci-fi blockbuster “Dune: Part Two” that was removed from the November slate and pushed back to a March 2024 release date.
So far this year, domestic theaters have grossed $8.26 billion, about $740 million shy of the $9 billion plus expected for the full year.
–CNN’s Leah Asmelash and Eva Rothenberg contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.