Theater counts: Mean Girls ends Wonka’s reign as widest release

January 11, 2024

After four weeks of being the widest release in the land, Wonka will slide into the second-place spot this week as the $470-million worldwide earner makes way for newcomer, Mean Girls. The Willy Wonka origin story film topped the domestic box office chart on three out of four of it's weekends, taking a backseat only to studio sibling Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom when the latter opened at number one during Wonka’s second weekend on the big screen. Along with Mean Girls, three other wide releases make their debut this week, including a long-awaited arrival to North American cinemas.

Based on the Broadway musical, and in turn on the 2004 comedy of the same name, Mean Girls follows a teenage girl who moves to suburban Illinois after being home schooled in Africa, and wants to be popular. She takes on The Plastics and becomes frenemies with Regina George. But she soon learns the hard way that you just shouldn’t mess with the Queen Bee. Beginning its run in 3,791 locations, the musical contains a large ensemble cast while also bringing back Tim Meadows and Tina Fey, with the latter writing the screenplay for the film.

Also making its way into theaters this week is the Jason Statham action feature, The Beekeeper. Available in 3,303 venues, the movie follows one man’s brutal campaign for vengeance when he takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as “Beekeepers”. Jeremy Irons and Josh Hutcherson star alongside Statham in this action-packed motion picture.

Debuting in 2,010 movie houses this week is the satirical biblical comedy-drama, The Book of Clarence. The movie has a large ensemble cast headlined by Lakeith Stanfield, who plays Clarence, a down-on-his-luck denizen of Jerusalem, who embarks on a misguided attempt to capitalize on the rise of celebrity and influence of the Messiah for his own personal gain. Making his directorial debut, Jeymes Samuel also wrote and produced the A.D. 33-set feature.

Lastly, after originally setting to make its arrival to cinemas in June, 2020, Soul was one of the first to experience pandemic woes, and was pushed back to November, and then ultimately exclusively to Disney+ on Christmas Day that year. It was announced in December of 2023 that it, and two other Pixar films affected by COVID-19 (Luca and Turning Red) would also be showing in theaters during the first half of 2024. Making its way into 1,350 cinemas, the film hopes to add to its nearly $120 million received from international showings that occurred in late 2020 and early 2021.

Rounding out the top five this week is the aforementioned Wonka, still available in a solid 3,346 cinemas. Occupying the fourth place slot is last week’s newcomer, Night Swim, adding seven locations this week to surface in 3,257 theaters. The horror flick came in second in its opening weekend with earnings of $11.8 million, and has accumulated just over $14 million in its first six days. Lastly, Migration drops almost 500 locations this week, but there is still plenty of viewing opportunities as the animated feature is playing in 3,214 cinemas.

Looking ahead to next week, only two wide releases make their way into theaters as sci-fi thriller I.S.S., and Origin are expected to open wide. We will update those numbers when we receive them.

Theater Counts for January 12

Filed under: Theater Counts, Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, Lakeith Lee Stanfield, Jeymes Samuel