LOS ANGELES: There's a new box office queen in town.
Fox's Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody over-performed with a rocking US$50 million when it debuted in 4,000 theatres in North America over the weekend. That was enough to dominate fellow newcomers The Nutcracker and the Four Realms and Nobody's Fool.
Bohemian Rhapsody ranks as the second-best start for a music biopic, following just 2015's Straight Outta Compton (US$60.2 million). For measure, it also topped the domestic debut of Warner Bros.' A Star Is Born, which launched with a solid US$42 last month.
Rami Malek stars as iconic Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in the film, which cost around US$50 million to produce. It's a bittersweet symphony for Fox as the studio prepares to merge with Disney. Bohemian Rhapsody has generated a mixed critical response, though audiences have embraced it with a 96 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes and an A CinemaScore.
Disney's The Nutcracker and the Four Realms launched at No. 2 on the lower end of expectations with a disappointing US$20 million from 3,766 venues, a rare miss for the Magic Kingdom given the movie's US$125 million price tag. The disastrous opening is the lowest in over a year for the studio.
The family-friendly Nutcracker amassed US$38.5 internationally, bringing its worldwide total to US$58 million. Keira Knightley, Misty Copeland, and Mackenzie Foy star in the film which was panned by critics, who gave it a 34 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.
In third, Paramount's Nobody's Fool, the first R-rated comedy from Tyler Perry, generated US$13.7 million from 2,468 screens. That's one of the lowest bows for a Perry movie.
Rounding out the top five are holdovers A Star Is Born and Halloween. Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga's A Star Is Born pocketed another US$11.1 million in its fifth outing, marking an impressive drop of just 21 per cent. That brings its domestic tally to a huge US$165 million. Universal and Blumhouse's R-rated slasher Halloween earned US$11 million for a North American total of US$150 million.
At the specialty box office, Focus Features' Boy Erased opened in five theatres in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco with the best screen average of the weekend. It generated US$220,000 for an average of US$44,000 per location. Lucas Hedges and Nicole Kidman star in the gay conversion drama, which will expand into 75 theatres next weekend.
For Aviron, Rosamund Pike's A Private War played in four theatres, where it made US$72,000 for a per-screen-average of US$18,000.