Wonka, Night Swim, and Anyone but You Open 2024 Box Office Challenge

Pundits predict 2024 box office will be determined by the success of lower-budget originals rather than franchise films. That was the case this week with good performances from “Anyone But You” and “Night Swim,” but we’re also seeing the downside without blockbusters to elevate grosses.

We did have “Wonka” (Warner Bros.) — a musical prequel to the classic Roald Dahl adaptation — which is now headed for over $200 million domestic. It repeated as #1 this weekend with $14.4 million. followed by $12 million from “Night Swim” (Universal), the latest low-budget ($15 million) Blumhouse horror entry.

Still, the first weekend of 2024 totaled around $87 million. That’s off 18 percent from 2023 thanks to “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which was then in its TK weekend with TK million. Certainly a tough act to follow, but it’s a rare post-holiday weekend not to gross over $100 million and usually substantially higher.

Sony rom-com “Anyone but You” is #5 at $9.5 million — up 9 percent over its second holiday weekend, which was an improvement over its opening. That’s all but unheard of in a wide release. While its three-day gross isn’t that special, the trajectory suggests this $25 million film (with an atypical R rating for the genre) could reach $100 million and a real boost for stars Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell.

That would more than triple the film’s most optimistic…