'Wonka' soars to the top of the box office with $14.4 million opening day

The Timothée Chalamet-led musical is projected to earn $35 million over opening weekend.

Not only is Warner Bros.' Wonka one of Mashable's best movies of 2023, but it's also on its way to becoming a box office champion.

The origin story of Roald Dahl's famed chocolatier — brought to whimsical life by Timothée Chalamet and Paddington director Paul King — took in $14.4 million on its opening day in the US, according to Variety. By the end of its debut weekend, it's expected to take in $35 million. The film marks Chalamet's second number-one film at the box office (2021's Dune was his first).

Given Wonka's $125 million production budget (not including its publicity costs), the film still has a long way to go before it turns a profit, though. However, Variety notes that Wonka is outperforming other recent movie musicals that struggled at the box office, including West Side Story and In the Heights. Could this be a good sign for Warner Bros.' next musical The Color Purple?

Elsewhere, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is poised to take second place at the box office, while Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron falls to third after its number one debut last weekend. (This is the first time a Miyazaki film has achieved that feat in the US.) Fourth place will go to Kaiju-epic Godzilla Minus One, and Trolls Band Together will close out the top five.