Aquaman 2 is no match for Wonka at the French box office

Timothée Chocolamet has already attracted more than a million French people to the cinema! (Source: Le Film Français).

The holiday season can be treacherous for theatrical releases. It’s a double-edged sword: either the public goes en masse to theaters to take advantage of the public holidays, or they stay warm at home between December 25 and January 1. In the absence of huge blockbusters in the vein of Spider-Man: No Way Home Or Avatar 2unlike previous years, the first top of the 2023 winter holidays is quite mixed.

Last year, during the last two weeks of December, the overall weekly ranking crossed 5 million entries. There, all the films offered bring together a total of 3,458,866 tickets.

Wonkaprequel to Charlie and the chocolate factory directed by Paul King (Paddington 1 And 2) for Warner Bros., still managed to cross the million admissions mark in its second week of operation. It has 591,666 spectators this week for an exact total of 1,379,512. A nice score for Timothée Chalametin the role of young Willy Wonka, on whom almost the entire promotion of the film is based.

In 2015, Paul King had managed to reach more than 2.7 million tickets sold in France thanks to Paddington, a feat that he did not repeat in 2018 with the second part, despite its excellent reviews. This one still accumulated the nice jackpot of 1,862,103 countermarks. Paul King seems to know the recipe for family and popular success, so let’s keep an eye out Wonka closely in the coming weeks.

Wonka is a superb pure sugar musical (review)

In second place comes Aquaman and the Lost Kingdomthe last DC film of the pre-James Gunn/Peter Safran. Always made by James Wanwith Jason Momoa in the title role, the film had half as many admissions as the first opus at start-up: 526,142 compared to 940,003 in the first week of 2019 (for a final total of more than 3.2 million). It suffered from bad press linked to several factors of casting, deadlines and manufacturing, as well as the decline in enthusiasm for the studio’s superheroic productions, at a time when the DCU is in full renewal at Warner. His criticisms are also unenthusiastic.

To close this podium, another film became a millionaire in two weeks, this time made in France. These are the Three Musketeers: Milady, the highly anticipated sequel to the first opus released a few months ago. The film reached precisely 1,173,072 tickets sold in two weeks, having attracted no less than 461,880 people since December 20. The first part of Martin Bourboulon had finished its run with a very nice cumulative total of 3,432,815 entries. The five-star cast (François Civil, Eva Green, Vincent Cassel, Pio Marmaï, Romain Duris, Lyna Khoudri) surely has something to do with it…

Family entertainment and French comedies intertwine in the rest of the ranking. Wish: Asha and the lucky star (337,630 tickets for a total of 1,682,340 in one month), the film celebrating Disney’s centenary, remains in the top. It is followed by Preserve with Didier Bourdon, Hakim Jemili And Chantale Ladesou, new release of the week which starts comfortably with 307,446 tickets excluding preview. The alternation continues with another animated film, Migration (from Illumination, this time), whose French dubbing is provided by Pio Marmaï And Laura Calamy, which reached an honest score of 618,844 entries in its third week of operation. It’s the ventriloquist Jeff Panacloc who takes over in seventh place in the ranking, with his film Jeff Panacloc – In pursuit of Jean-Marcalso released this week, opening to 152,949 spectators excluding the preview.

The braid, adapted from the eponymous novel, occupies eighth place and attracted 105,656 curious people for a total of 774,341 entries after one month of operation. The top closes with two American behemoths who fiercely keep their place in the ranking: Napoleon of Ridley Scott which adds some 69,843 additional curious people for a total of 1,562,592 for its fifth week and Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird which is hot on its heels with 69,758 tickets sold in recent days and a cumulative total of 1,577,964 tickets in a month and a half.

French weekly box office from December 20 to 26, 2023:

Aquaman 2 has already lost the lead at the US box office, dethroned by The Color Purple