#Box Office: Timothée Chalamet’s ‘Wonka’ Charms With $39M U.S. Opening

The Timothée Chalamet-led Wonka sweetened up the pre-Christmas box office in singing to a $39 million domestic debut, ahead of expectations and a promising sign for the yuletide season.

It’s also a promising start for a musical, a genre that has struggled in recent times. From Warner Bros. and Harry Potter franchise producer David Heyman, Wonka is a whimsical origin tale about the magical candyman Willy Wonka, who was played by Gene Wilder in the classic movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Audiences bestowed Wonka with an A- CinemaScore, while 60 percent of ticket buyers were between the ages of 18 and 34. The largest quad was 18 to 24 at 33 percent, while another 10 percent of ticket buyers were between 13 and 17, underscoring Chalamet’s star status with younger moviegoers. Wonka is skewing slightly female so far, or 54 percent.

Directed by Paul King of Paddington fame and starring Chalamet as a young Willy Wonka, the movie features a star-studded ensemble cast also including Hugh Grant, Olivia Colman, Keegan-Michael Key, Calah Lane, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Mathew Baynton, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Natasha Rothwell, Rich Fulcher, Rakhee Thakrar, Tom Davis and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.

Wonka hopes to sing loudly throughout the holidays. This weekend always poses a challenge for moviegoing in that many consumers are occupied with gift-buying and other preparations, but traffic at the multiplex picks up in earnest once presents are unwrapped on Dec. 25.

Warners is dominating the year-end marquee. DC superhero pic Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom opens Dec. 22, followed on Christmas Day by The Color Purple, which is also a musical. On the family front, Universal and Illumination’s original animated event pic Migration comes out on Dec. 22.

The musical genre has a checkered history of late, but Wonka and The Color Purple hope to reverse this curse and match the success of films, like the Hugh Jackman-led The Greatest Showman, which debuted to dismal numbers over Christmas in 2017 but then took hold and amassed a fortune.

Wonka is one of the first Hollywood pics to unspool since the SAG-AFTRA strike ended. Warners and the filmmakers breathed a huge sigh of relief at being able to dispatch Chalamet to promote and publicize the PG-rated film. Young girls are particularly taken with the young actor, who next stars in Dune: Part Two, which Warners and Legendary delayed until next March so that Chalamet and co-star Zendaya would be able to do press.

Lionsgate’s origin story The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Snowbirds and the Snakes held at No. 2 in its fifth weekend as it jumped the $300 million globally after finishing Sunday with a domestic cume of $145 million and $155 million overseas.

More to come.

This story was first published Dec. 16 at 8:11 a.m.