Sony's 'Jumanji' Dominates January 2018 Box Office
Despite there being a new Star Wars film in theaters, this past January saw Sony's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle lead the way, playing a huge role in the month finishing just ahead of last January despite there being 28 fewer films in theaters. Sony also led all distributors with over $200 million in grosses followed closely by Fox, which saw continued success from a pair of Oscar nominees in The Post and the continued strong performance of The Greatest Showman, which is currently working on a 17x multiplier since its late December release.

Sony was the only studio in January to gross over $200 million, led by Jumanji's $171.7 million, accounting for 84% of the studio's total monthly gross and besting Star Wars: The Last Jedi in second place by $77.2 million. In fact, Jumanji's January gross was the fifth largest of all-time behind the likes of Avatar ($312.1m), Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($243.8m), American Sniper ($242.2m) and Titanic ($188.2m). Thus far, Jumanji has grossed over $366 million domestically and will soon top Spider-Man 2 as Sony's second highest grossing release of all-time. No wonder a sequel is already in the works.

Sony's only new January release, and the studio's second highest grossing film for the month, was the disappointing returns for Proud Mary, which could only manage $19.5 million for the month after falling short of expectations over its opening weekend.

Fox took the runner-up position in January led by The Greatest Showman's nearly $80 million. The fan favorite musical has been a smash hit among a wide swath of audience demographics and is creeping up on $150 million domestically, soon to become star Hugh Jackman's highest grossing, live action, non-X-Men feature as it is currently less than $2 million behind 2012's Les Miserables ($148.8m). Fox also saw Steven Spielberg's The Post add $59.5 million over the course of the month as it went wide on January 12, following a limited debut in late December. The film earned two Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Actress (Meryl Streep), and has so far grossed over $73 million.

The studio's only new wide release in January was Maze Runner: The Death Cure, which debuted ~$6 million behind its predecessor as the franchise continues to show dwindling returns. After bringing in $28.5 million in January the film's grosses will top $50 million in the next couple of days.

Disney claimed third place for the month with $120.2 million, led by Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which brought in $94.5 million adding to a domestic cume that has since topped $615 million following its mid-December opening. The film currently ranks as the sixth highest grossing domestic release of all-time. Disney and Pixar's Coco also added $23.1 million in January as its domestic gross has now climbed over $205 million and will soon top Ratatouille to become Pixar's 13th highest grossing release of all-time.

Universal ranked fourth in January with $104 million along with the month's highest grossing new release in Insidious: The Last Key. The fourth film in the Insidious franchise delivered the second largest opening weekend of the franchise and currently ranks as the franchise's second highest grossing domestic release with $66.8 million and will soon become the highest grossing worldwide release among the franchise. Last Key is just the latest hit for Blumhouse Productions, which also celebrated a Best Picture nomination for their 2017 hit Get Out to go along with three other nominations for Director (Jordan Peele), Actor (Daniel Kaluuya) and Original Screenplay.

Rounding out the top five is Warner Bros. with $72.5 million for the month. Leading the way was a pair of new releases in Paddington 2, which the studio acquired from the The Weinstein Co., and 12 Strong. Neither film made much of an impact, both grossing just over $30 million for the month.

Looking ahead, February is currently pacing about 4% behind last year with this past weekend's release of Fifty Shades Free leading the way after just four days in release. However, things should soon change course quickly with the upcoming release of Black Panther this weekend as the film has its sights firmly set on breaking Deadpool's February opening record of $132 million.

Finally, a list of selected films that closed out their domestic runs in January is featured below, ordered by cumulative gross.

  • Kingsman: The Golden Circle
[/link] (Fox) - Closed with $100.23m after 105 days in release
  • A Bad Moms Christmas
[/link] (STX) - Closed with $72.11m after 72 days in release
  • Geostorm
[/link] (WB) - Closed with $33.7m after 84 days in release
  • Marshall
[/link] (Open Road) - Closed with $10.05m after 98 days in release
  • Just Getting Started
[/link] (Broad Green ) - Closed with $6.07m after 49 days in release
  • The Man Who Invented Christmas
[/link] (Bleecker) - Closed with $5.68m after 65 days in release
  • Wonderstruck
[/link] (Roadside) - Closed with $1.06m after 77 days in release

For a complete look at January's box office results, find calendar grosses here and grosses for all of the month's new releases here.

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