There were still some theater closures in the Midwest into Saturday from Winter Storm Gerri. But Mean Girls kept on track in the region, the 4-day for the Angourie Rice-Reneé Rapp ensemble still at $32M after a $9.6M Saturday, -17% against Friday, which included previews. Still, without the storm, the notion is that there would be more bucks. But a confidence exudes that business will recover once everyone in the Midwest thaws out. Overall, 2M attended Mean Girls, according to box office stat firm EntTelligence.
While Storm Gerri was headed to New England, she didn’t step on Mean Girls‘ toes, as the pic overperformed in Boston. However, there were a couple of theaters closed in Buffalo, with the last show at 4:30 PM because of a no-travel edict that was mandated at 9 PM.
The global start for the Tina Fey-scripted movie, based off the 3-day of $28M, stands at $34.5M, per Paramount.
EntTelligence says that Mean Girls played well out of teen groups, who only showed at 10%, per their measure. Nonfamily numbered 82%, while families attended at 8%, with women overall buying tickets at 75%. Biggest demo for EntTelligence on the film were 26-35 year olds at 34%. Those under 25 were only 37%. Seventy six percent of the attendance for Mean Girls was between 1 PM-8 PM.
Similar to their pivot of Smile from Paramount+ to the big screen, Paramount marketing put a lot of oomph into stoking the Mean Girls fanbase and getting the title into the zeitgeist. It’s another big save by Paramount studio boss Brian Robbins, who once again noticed the cinematic potential for a movie that was originally developed for the home. On October 3, which doubles as Mean Girls and National Boyfriend Day, the studio pulled off a novel stunt and dropped the original 2004 movie on TikTok in 23 parts on the Mean Girls handle, which mushroomed in followers. October 3 is celebrated as “Mean Girls Day” because of a line in the original movie from Lindsay Lohan’s character, Cady, who has a crush on Aaron. She tells him, “It’s October 3rd.” The one-liner has led to fans of the film celebrating the pic with memes and wearing pink. Paramount also dropped the title treatment for the new Mean Girls movie on Oct. 3. Social media analytics firm RelishMix reports an unprecedented number of hashtags for #meangirls at a mind-boggling 16 billion — this is all because of TikTok.
However, let’s not forget the Wal-Mart Mean Girls Black Friday ads, which was a perfect push to the flyover state demo this movie was aimed at. RelishMix reporting that the commercial truly caught the attention of fans:
That said, the social media universe for Mean Girls is measured at 264M across X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, which is just under pre-Covid A Star Is Born‘s 301M, and ahead of Paramount’s Rocketman (113.5M) and Warner Bros’ The Color Purple (200M) before opening. Also pumping up the online glamor of the film is Megan Thee Stallion, who has a song on the soundtrack, and she’s connecting with fans on all four of her platforms, which count 57.6M. Meanwhile, from the film, Jenna Fischer count 5.4M follows and Rapp 3.2M.
Megan Thee Stallion’s video “Not My Fault” is now north of 14M views on IG; the video collected 12.8M within its first five days of being dropped.
Before Christmas, Paramount announced “12 Days of Fetch,” which the pic sparked with new content and giveaways for fans. There were featurettes showcasing Kyle Hanagami’s choreography, as well as the impact of the original movie on culture, with giveaways from American Eagle, which had an exclusive line of Mean Girls fleece sweaters and Stanley Tumblers, and an all-new Burn Book generator, where one could create your own burn book entry about themselves. Posts for “12 Days of Fetch” yielded over 24M views.
Among other digital content to promote the pic, there was castmember Christopher Briney playing with puppies, a holiday candy grams piece with the cast, and a personalized Burn Book piece with the cast of Vanderpump Rules. UberTeen debuted their free rides to the theater program by offering two free rides for new Uber teen account riders nationwide, so teens can catch Mean Girls during Paramount’s early access screenings on Wednesday.
Social media influencers Chris Olsen and Pierson Wodzynski had cameos in the movie, with social creators Reece Feldman and Jake Shane collaborating with Paramount as creative directors for brand socials. There was a “Burn Book Brunch” held, with branded photo moments and custom merch, and a fully branded activation for 300+ creators, actors, and musicians to walk the red carpet and capture unique photo & video moments. Altogether, those social media influencers attending that event have a reach of 1.4 billion followers between TikTok and IG.
Being inserted into the film were e.l.f and Secret deodorant (P&G) partnerships. There was a custom spot featuring cast members Avantika and Bebe Wood.
Cinnabon had specialty pink icing on their buns and packaging with splashes for Mean Girls at their stores.
Top markets that also over-performed for Mean Girls included New York, Philadelphia, Austin, Nashville, and St. Louis while the only top markets that under-indexed were Toronto, Miami, Detroit, and Las Vegas. Top theaters came from New York, LA, Orlando, Boston, Nashville, Phoenix, Dallas, Tampa, SF, Philadelphia, Pharr TX, and San Antonio. PLFs delivered a strong 25% of the box office on this teen comedy.
Amazon MGM/Miramax’s The Beekeeper is landing at $19.1M over 4 days after $5.7M Saturday, -15%; 3-day is $16.7M. This is ahead of where tracking spotted the Jason Statham film. Imax delivered $3.2M for the David Ayer-directed movie repping close to 17% of the weekend. Beekeeper drew 1.3M admissions per EntTelligence.
Legendary/Tri-Star’s The Book of Clarence still isn’t being opened by anyone, with a 4-day of $3M. Legendary will take the hit for the estimated $20M marketing cost on top of the $40M production budget. Nobody really rationalized what audience this experimental faith-based film was for. Faith-based moviegoers like their straight-up, vanilla heartwarming stories. Not zany things that riff off the Bible, but are rather spot-on.
Elsewhere, Warner Bros.’ biggest film of the Christmas season, Wonka crossed the half billion mark worldwide.
Seventeen movies grossed over $1M over the 4-day box office, versus ten last year. However, there was more money between last year’s top two movies, Avatar 2 and M3GAN at $61M, versus the $51M being split between Mean Girls and Beekeeper here. Overall, MLK box office looks to stand around $119.7M, -4% from a year ago. That’s not bad, but still, as we all know, it’s going to be a long winter until Dune: Part Two on March 2. Industry projections, given the lack of a tentpole, are bound to be wild for Dune 2, but we need to calm down: it’s a sequel to a Denis Villeneuve sci-fi movie. If Dune 2 does $70M, that’s pretty awesome for a movie that opened to $41M; the ticket sales back when that movie opened in 2021 diluted by a day-and-date premiere on streamer HBO Max.
Sunday studio reported estimates:
1.) Mean Girls (Par) 3,791 theaters, Fri $11.65M, Sat $9.65M Sun $6.8M Mon $4M 3-day $28M, 4-day $32M/Wk 1
2.) The Beekeeper (AMZ MGM) 3,303 theaters, Fri $6.7M, Sat $5.7M Sun $4.3M Mon $2.3M 3-day $16.8M, 4-day $19.2M/Wk 1
3.) Wonka (WB) 3,346 (-471) theaters, Fri $1.8M (-58%) Sat $3.65M Sun $2.9M Mon $2.5M 3-day $8.38M (-40%), 4-day $10.88M Total $178.69M/Wk 5
4.) Migration (Ill/Uni) 3,224 (-488) theaters, Fri $1.15M (-62%) Sat $2.8M Sun $2.2M Mon $2.1M 3-day $6.19M (-38%), 4-day $8.3M Total $87.8M/ Wk 4
5.) Anyone But You (Sony) 2,935 (-120) Fri $2.1M (-35%) Sat $2.75M Sun $2.09M Mon $1.3M 3-day $6.94M (-29%), 4 day $8.255M Total $56.4M/Wk 4
6.) Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (WB) 2,741 (-812) theaters, Fri $1.16M (-63%) Sat $2.28M Sun $1.8M Mon $1.37M 3-day $5.265M (-50%), 4-day $6.64M /Total $109.6M/Wk 4
7.) Night Swim (Uni) 3,257 (+7) theaters, Fri $1.17M (-78%) Sat $1.98M Sun $1.5M Mon $840K 3-day $4.66M (-60%), 4-day $5.5M, Total $20M/Wk 7
8.) Boys in the Boat (AMZ MGM) 2,007 (-680) theaters, Fri $974K (-45%) Sat $1.45M Sun $1.09M 3-day $3.52M (-37%), 4-day $4.18M Total $40M, Wk 3
9.) The Book of Clarence (Leg/Tri-Star) Fri $1M Sat $890K Sun $685K Mon $425K 3-day $2.57M 4-day $3M/Wk 1
9) Iron Claw (A24) 1,591 (-801) theaters, Fri $691K Sat $950K Sun $760K Mon $608K 3-day $2.4M (-47%) 4-day $3M Total $29.2M /Wk 4
11.) Guntur Kaaram (Parth) 800 theaters, Fri $2M, Sat $391K Sun $317K Mon $170K 3-day $2.7M, 4-day $2.87M/Wk 1
Notables
Soul (Dis) 1,350 Theaters Fri $125K Sat $170K Sun $134K Mon $128K 3-day $429K 4-day $557K/Wk 1