Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" tripled its budget, according to Deadline, earning over $32 million.
- The film has been received well, with an 91% critics score and 97% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and an "A" on CinemaScore.
SALT LAKE CITY — "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" has basically tripled its budget in box office revenue as of Friday.
The film, directed by Dallas Jenkins, creator of "The Chosen," had a budget of under $10 million, according to Deadline. In a world where some movies have budgets in the hundreds of millions, it's a modest budget.
But numbers from Box Office Mojo show the film has earned more than $32 million at the domestic box office. This effectively means the movie has made triple its budget. It's a good sign for Jenkins and could mean the door to making more movies has been opened.
The movie was Lionsgate's holiday release. It was released on Nov. 8 across 3,020 theaters. On its opening weekend, it made over $10 million. According to current Box Office Mojo data, it sits as the 45th highest-grossing movie released in 2024. Currently, the top three highest-grossing movies are "Inside Out 2,″ "Deadpool and Wolverine" and "Despicable Me 4."
"Getting this movie made was the primary victory for me after almost 20 years of chasing the rights," said Jenkins in a statement given to the Deseret News soon after the film's opening weekend. "But the reviews, the audience response and the box office results made this experience especially sweet."
'The Best Christmas Pageant Ever' reviews
As of Friday, "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" had a critic score of 91% and an audience score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. CinemaScore, which polls audience response to films, gave the movie an A.
For the sake of comparison, "Moana 2″ got an A-, "Conclave" got a B+, "Heretic" got a C+, "The Apprentice" got a B- and "Gladiator II" got a B.
KSL.com reviewed the film, which can be found here. But here's a look at what other reviewers had to say about the movie.
Variety: "His 'Pageant' goes a little too sentimental and instructive too soon for those viewers whose attention spans are better suited to the antic earlier going. Nonetheless, this is a well-cast, well-crafted diversion for the whole family that's already done well for Lionsgate (racking up $10.8 million on more than 3,000 screens) in its initial week of theatrical release, and will surely prove a perennial for Yuletide seasons to come."
RogerEbert.com: "The film is smart enough to make the happy ending more thoughtful than it would be if Herdmans somehow turned into well-behaved, happy children. Instead, the Herdmans' fresh take on the old story makes it more meaningful to everyone in the congregation."
The Wrap: "With all the Christmas movies released every year, it's getting harder to sift through the chaff and find the really good ones. 'The Best Christmas Pageant Ever' stands out. It's one of the best holiday movies in a long time, an intelligent and thoughtful film about the true meaning of Christmas and how easy it is for anyone — even true believers — to get caught up in the superficial trappings and lose sight of why it's important."
