Cinemas prepare for Boxing Day crowds but Netflix wants you to stay home

According to HOYTS, this year’s Boxing Day lineup has “a lot more variety” than last, which saw Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom take $2.04 million on the day, Wonka bring in $1.18 million, and Sydney Sweeney rom-com, Anyone But You, take $806,000.

HOYTS predicts Sonic the Hedgehog 3 could take out the top spot this Boxing Day, given its “incredible” pre-sales.

The other films released on December 26 include Better Man – the Robbie Williams biopic in which he is portrayed as a simian – A Real Pain, written by and starring Jesse Eisenberg, alongside Succession star, Kieran Culkin; and Anora, in which “a sex worker from Brooklyn gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and marries the son of an oligarch”.

The biggest draw-cards for cinemas this holiday season, however, came out over the past few weeks, during what has been a crowded December at the cinema.

Wicked, which had already brought in $31 million by December 16, will see that box office cume boosted by an all-new official Wicked sing-along-version, which comes out Christmas Day, and is exactly what it sounds like. HOYTS will screen both original and sing-along versions.

Credit: Universal Pictures. (L-R): Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Ariana Grande as Glinda

Moana 2 will also continue to be a huge draw; in its first three weeks at the cinema, the Disney flick took $31 million – a remarkable feat, given it was intended to originally be a straight-to-streaming release. This goes some way to explaining why Disney has released two tentpole family films in the same holiday season, with Mufasa: The Lion King opening on December 19 and also expected to do big business for the company.

Then there is Gladiator II, the second half of the ‘Glicked’ combo, which has seen moviegoers pairing this bloody battle film with musical fantasy Wicked in an attempt to recapture the magic of last year’s unlikely double-header. During the weekend Wicked was released, the two films were responsible for 56% of the total box office.

“Collectively, those three movies absolutely have the potential to do the same kind of numbers as Barbenheimer did last year,” HOYTS CEO Damian Keogh said, of Moana II, Wicked, and Gladiator II.

“To be honest, it’s incredibly much needed for the cinema industry at the moment, because the legacy of the six-month Hollywood strike last year has put a bit of a dint in the supply chain for this year.”

When speaking to Mumbrella late last month, Keogh described the year of cinema as “feast and famine in patches”, but said the cinema chain is expecting a strong final six-week run to put the annual box office taking “pretty close to the number we were at last year”.

“When you think of that impact of that strike and the supply, overall, that’s a pretty solid result,” he reasons. “We’re expecting 2025 to be up another 10% on this year, as well.”

Mounting a sizeable challenge for Boxing Day audiences is Netflix, which would rather you bunker home in the comfort of your own home and watch the entire second season of Squid Game 2, which comes onto the streaming service on December 26.

The first season of the South Korean drama was watched by more than 142 million households within four weeks of debuting on Netflix in 2021. To promote the Boxing Day drop, Netflix has staged unsettling installations across Sydney and Melbourne to promote the series, a tactic it has also rolled out across London, Paris, Edinburgh, and Seoul.

Given the worldwide success of the first season of Squid Game, the worldwide release, and the spoiler-heavy culture we live in, it’s unlikely that fans of this show will opt to spend Boxing Day at the cinema at the risk of having their three-year wait upended by a stray headline that reveals the surprise twist at the end of episode six.

Last year’s pop culture moment happened at the cinema, which was needed to get people back into the habit of sharing dark rooms with dozens of strangers. This year, Netflix is hoping that families will instead choose to spend the day after Christmas in the most unholy of ways.

There’s also the cricket too, I guess.

Nathan Jolly

Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.

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topics A Real PainBetter ManBoxing DayBoxing Day moviesGladiator IIHoytsMoana IIMufasa: The Lion Kingsonic the hedgehog 3wicked

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