On the animatronic back of Universal’s Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and a strong second weekend for Disney’s global sensation Zootopia 2 (nearing $1 billion worldwide), the North American box office set a post-Thanksgiving record this weekend with $151 million.
“Basically, there are no problems in Hollywood,” special guest Roy Price told Richard Rushfield and Sean McNulty facetiously about the weekend’s box office. “As we can see from the headlines today, we’re all looking good.”
Price, the former head of Amazon Studios, wrote a widely shared op-ed in the New York Times this weekend titled, “Netflix’s Swallowing of Warner Bros. Will Be the End of Hollywood.” But until Warner Bros. is sold, either to Netflix or Paramount (which made a hostile bid for the studio today), there are box office results to analyze and executives to praise. Today, that was Universal boss Donna Langley, whose studio held the first and third positions on the top 10 list thanks to Freddy’s 2 and Wicked: For Good.
“Hats off to Donna,” Sean says. “She’s done a great job, all things considered, of creating some stability. Comparatively speaking, they’ve never really had that year (where) nothing worked at all.”
