Moana knows how far it’ll go; Allied is betrayed; Bad Santa 2 lets its predecessor down, lets its family down, but, most importantly, it lets itself down; Lion makes its way back home, and Other Box Office News.

OK, even by the usual standards of Thanksgiving Weekend, this was a super busy one, so let’s not waste any time with the same half-baked unfunny Thanksgiving comparison intro I always do for these specific Box Office Reports and just dive straight in.  Surprising absolutely zero human beings, for Disney can buy and sell all of us at a moment’s notice, Moana went off and delivered the second-largest five-day Thanksgiving opening weekend of all-time and, more importantly for our Box Office Report, the third-largest three-day Thanksgiving opening weekend of all-time with $81.1 million and $55.5 million respectively, comfortably securing the top spot and giving the Disney machine yet another record that it can use to pick lesser films and mortal beings out of its teeth with.  All shall be subsumed by The Great Disney Machine eventually!  Submit now whilst they’re still benevolent and maybe you’ll get the same guaranteed gainful employment with them that Alan Tudyk has!

Sadly (or “not sadly” depending on how much leeway you’re willing to give to these films), Moana was the only actual success in the wide release chart this week, with the weekend’s three other films being stuffed and mounted on Disney’s wall like so much egregious Thanksgiving turkey, or something.  “Best” performing of the lot – and also the actual best of the lot, because quality counts for shit with the public this year, in case you hadn’t gathered – was the good-old-fashioned Movie Star war drama Allied which could only reach fourth place and $13 million, losing out to the fourth week of Doctor Strange.  Then way way way way way down from that we have the latest of 2016’s Belated Comedy Sequels Nobody Was Asking For with the godawful Bad Santa 2 looking to take advantage of a market of racist, homophobic, misogynist middle-aged White men who wanted to hear Billy Bob Thornton tell it like it is.  They were probably too busy getting yelled at over the dinner table by their liberal offspring for dooming the world, however, to go as the film bombed into eighth place with just $6 million.

But at least everyone involved can take heart in the fact that they aren’t Rules Don’t Apply.  Sure, they have to live with the fact that that they made Bad Santa 2, but people have already forgotten about Bad Santa 2.  Rules Don’t Apply, meanwhile, is about to go down as an obscure movie factoid answer on your makeshift National Lottery: Who Dares Wins quiz game, as it just posted the sixth worst opening weekend ever for a film in 2,000+ theatres.  How bad did it do?  It didn’t come anywhere close to breaking into the Full List, sputtering out at just $1,575,000 for twelfth, with a per-screen average of $661.  And yet, this is still somehow not the most embarrassing thing to happen to Warren Beatty throughout his long illustrious career, which is probably something he’s fine with.  After all, making and starring in Bulworth really does put any embarrassments into sharper perspective by at least not being Bulworth.

Right, time’s running short due that detour for some well-deserved Bulworth dunking, so let’s speed through the Limited Release news right quick.  Most successful of the new releases was the Weinstein’s abysmal and insulting Lion which wastes Dev Patel in Oscar Bait so thick and so obvious that any fish with half a brain would see through the ruse instantly.  Unfortunately, we are in Awards Season, so the film still raked in $128,368 from 4 screens for a per-screen average of $32,092.  Next up was the return of John Madden and his overreliance on talented actors and actresses to carry his sleepwalking direction in Miss Sloane, which moved $63,000 worth of tough actin’ Tinactin from 3 screens for a per-screen average of $21,000.  In expansion news, Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester By the Sea emotionally devastated 48 theatres and shifted an astonishing $1,250,294 worth of tissues for a ridiculous per-screen average of $26,048.  Whilst the turn of the limited release to tickle edges of the Full List this week fell to Loving, now in 421 theatres but just stalling out in eleventh with $1,691,000.

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This Full List is shiny!  …look, I can’t actually remember any of the songs from Moana, they’re all kinda forgettable.

US Box Office Results: Friday 25th November 2016 – Sunday 27th November 2016

1] Moana

$55,523,000 / $81,108,000 / NEW

Review for this shall be along on Wednesday at the earliest and by the end of the week at the latest, cos you better believe that I’m gonna review the last proper animated release this year!  I’m going back for seconds when it properly releases here this weekend, and that’s gonna be an important fact to remember despite how disappointed I end up sounding in the review.  On its own, it’s damn great.  As the latest film in what has been an outstanding seven-film hot streak for Walt Disney Animation Studios, where every film has been better than the last, it’s a disappointment – a B+ after a string of As.  Any other studio put this out, and I’d be singing its praises with minimal reservations, which is sorta unfair but then so is life.  Again, though, I am going back for seconds because, despite that relative disappointment, it is a damn great film.

2] Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

$45,100,000 / $156,228,123

I cannot think of a more perfect embodiment of the state of Harry Potter in 2016 than this movie.  Two hours of completely pointless plotless appendices that tells no story, has no characters, mixes its already-undermined metaphors – please, for the love of God, quit it with your persecution metaphors being staffed entirely by White people – and bungles them spectacularly in a way that’s super out-of-touch with today’s world, and tangibly only exists to make J.K. Rowling even more ungodly rich.  I watched this whole film and honestly wondered who this thing is aimed at, because it appears to be for nobody at all.

Oh, and Eddie Redmayne REALLY needs to fuck off now.  Just fuck off.  He’s been an atrocious actor in everything I’ve seen him in, anyway, but his insipid mugging here was absolutely insufferable.  If I wanted to watch shit Doctor Who, I would have watched any Doctor Who made within the last five years.

3] Doctor Strange

$13,369,000 / $205,093,475

In fact, whilst I’m on the subject, I would like to rescind any negative word I have ever had against Benedict Cumberbatch.  I may still not really be a fan of his for reasons I can’t quite articulate, but the continued existence of Eddie Redmayne really puts things into perspective, cos at least Cumberbatch can act.

4] Allied

$13,000,000 / $18,022,000 / NEW

Was planning on dropping this on you all surprise-like but I got distracted by the F1 yesterday and then fell asleep before I could finish writing it, so I’ll announce this in advance: review’s coming tomorrow.  Gonna be shorter than usual, but I need to get back into the swing of writing since the end of December is coming up quick and I can’t be rusty headed into that.

5] Arrival

$11,250,000 / $62,387,300

With the exception of Almost Christmas, which we shall get to in a moment, this had the best hold of the week, dropping just 7.3% compared to last weekend.  I have no snark, here, I am just genuinely pleased that more people are getting to see this wonderful, beautiful movie.

6] Trolls

$10,340,000 / $135,136,662

Before anybody asks, Sing is not due out here in the UK until the end of January so you’re gonna have to wait for my thoughts on that one.  I want to remain optimistic but… I mean… it just looks so, so, so, so, so awful.  It really does.

7] Almost Christmas

$7,610,000 / $36,688,865

This grew almost 5% in comparison to last weekend.  For real.  Well, I’m glad we all picked the superior bad Christmas film to go see.  Win?

8] Bad Santa 2

$6,106,658 / $9,031,191 / NEW

I didn’t even so much as smirk once.  That’s my whole review.  It deserves no more words wasted on it.

9] Hacksaw Ridge

$5,450,000 / $52,248,382

Whenever I get a new “War Is Hell” drama on this list, I always want to link to the old “WAAAR IISS HEELLL!” song from early South Park, but I can never find it on the Internet.  Does it just not exist?  Did I somehow make it up?  Cos, if so, that’s super weird since I’ve spent something like 15 years believing that I was referencing an old South Park VHS I had.  Answers on a postcard, please.

10] The Edge of Seventeen

$2,960,000 / $10,273,770

This could very well pull off an upset and stick around next week, since it’s the annual Dump Nothing But a Shitty Horror Movie Into 1,500 Screens Week, but I’m also going to get to actually see it this weekend so Sod’s Law dictates that this ain’t staying.  And the heat goes on.

Dropped Out: Bleed for This, The Accountant, Shut In

Callie Petch wants to hold your hands in the holes of their sweater.