Last week’s headliner, Eternals, hauled in another $27.5M in its sophomore weekend – ahead of the $16.4M weekend from Paramount’s new film Clifford the Big Red Dog, and leading the charts of this $71.3M weekend. Despite the mixed word-of-mouth, the Marvel superhero epic dropped just -61% from its debut. That’s in between the drops of Shang-Chi (-52%) and Black Widow (67%). Adding up the ten days, Eternals’ running total stands at $118.8M.

Clifford released last Wednesday and actually surprised with the five-day total of $22M.  The PG live-action rendition of the popular kids’ book series was also available to stream on Paramount Plus here in the states – but  on an exclusive theatrical window in Canada. Like its predecessor, Paw Patrol: The Movie (also a day-and-date Paramount Plus film), the Big Red Dog lured family audiences where the IP is a household name. 

Paramount decided on the day-and-date before kids under 12 were approved for the coronavirus vaccine (and also to bolster their subscriptions). Kids 5 to 11 are now eligible, but the impact on the box-office was probably slight going into the weekend. Kids who received their first shot likely won’t be fully vaccinated until next month. Still, parents and children made up 78% of the opening weekend office, per Box Office Pro. It also over-indexed in the Midwest, south central, and southern US. That should bode well for the incoming Thanksgiving weekend – especially for Disney’s Encanto. Until then, Clifford will have the full attention of family audiences.

Rounding out the top five were Dune, No Time to Die, and Venom Let There be Carnage. The story once again is amazing holdovers! Dune, currently in its fourth weekend and still airing on HBO MAX, dropped just -29% with a $5.5M weekend. No Time to Die, in its sixth weekend, added $4.6M – dipping just 23% from the previous weekend and finally cracking a $150M domestic total. Venom had an even better hold, falling just -10.4% and pulling in another $4M in its seventh weekend. Venom’s $202.7M total makes it the second major-studio film to surpass $200M this year, along with Shang-Chi. 

Meanwhile, another Oscar hopeful stepped into the box-office. The festival-favorite, Belfast, pulled $1.8M from just 580 theaters, with a per-screen average of $3,103. The film unsurprisingly pulled in the over 35 crowd (73% per Deadline), with the majority of the box-office coming from NYC, LA, And San Francisco.

This Friday 11/19 will likely see a new #1 movie with Sony’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife coming to the big screen. Alongside that, Warner Bros. is releasing King Richard in theaters and HBO Max. After that, the holiday season drumroll kicks off on Wednesday 11/24 with Encanto, House of Gucci, and Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City.