Sunset Blvd. had its best box office numbers yet last week, while Maybe Happy Ending showed some welcome improvement and both Elf and A Wonderful World opened to houses with 90% of seats filled.
The pre-holiday news wasn’t quite so cheery for all of Broadway though, as no fewer than 26 of the 37 productions saw downturns, some small, some not so small, for the week ending November 17. In all, the 37 shows took in $35,104,796, a slip of just about 4% from the previous week, with attendance of 304,368 off by less than a full percentage point.
Among the notable numbers:
- Sunset Blvd., a couple weeks out from the Nicole Scherzinger social media flap, posted a gross of $1,902,072, up more than $44,000 over the previous week. Attendance at the St. James was at 95% of the venue’s capacity;
- A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical, opened at Studio 54 to mostly decent reviews, filling 92% of seats and grossing $661,380;
- The marvelous Maybe Happy Ending, starring Darren Criss and Helen J Shen opened at the Belasco with a weekly gross of $458,827, a $160,860 improvement over the previous week. Attendance was at 89% of capacity compared to 84% the previous week. With any luck, the across-the-board rave reviews will buy this genuine charmer some time to catch on;
- Also opening last week was Tammy Faye, which didn’t fare so well with critics. Attendance during opening week was only 63% of the Palace’s capacity, with a seven-show gross of $374,371, and with press and opening night comps taking bites;
- Elf, the limited holiday engagement staging of the musical adaptation of the popular movie, opened at the Marquis to $510,047 (lots of press and opening night comps took their toll), attendance at 90% of capacity;
- Swept Away, which opens tonight at the Longacre, filled just 81% of seats, with a gross of $426,788. As with Maybe Happy Ending, reviews could tell the tale here;
- Death Becomes Her, meanwhile, might already be critic-proof (not that it necessarily need worry about reviews). With an opening just days away – November 21 – the musical adaptation of the film last week took in a hefty $1,121,395, filling 96% of seats at the Lunt-Fontanne;
- Romeo + Juliet, the star-powered update with Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler, had another standing-room-only week, selling out 102% at Circle in the Square and grossing $1,022,028.
Also worth noting, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child debuted its new, slimmed-down version (running time under three hours) and new cast during a planned 7-performance week, filling about 89% of seats at the Lyric and grossing $900,528.
Shows with attendance greater than 90% of capacity included Wonderful World, Aladdin, Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, Death Becomes Her, Elf, Hadestown, Hamilton, Hell’s Kitchen, McNeal (100%), Moulin Rouge!, Oh, Mary! (100%), Romeo + Juliet (102%), Stereophonic, Suffs, Sunset Blvd., The Book of Mormon, The Lion King, The Outsiders (101%), Wicked (100%, and the top grosser with $2,445,380) and Yellow Face.
On the lower end of the spectrum, five shows filled fewer than 70% of their seats: Back to the Future (68%), Chicago (62%), Left on Tenth (64%), Tammy Faye (63%), and The Hills of California (60%).
Season to date, Broadway, in the 26th week of the 2024-25 season, has grossed $823,044,626, up about 12% over last year at this time, with total attendance of 6,727,317, also up about 11%.
All figures courtesy of The Broadway League. For complete box office listings, visit the League’s website.