Silent Night, which marks John Woo’s first American film since Paycheck in 2003, opened to just $3 million domestically this weekend via Lionsgate. That’s not a shock—Joel Kinnaman isn’t exactly a butts-in-seats draw, and Woo was barely known to general audiences back in the days of Face/Off and Broken Arrow. But while Hollywood mostly took the post-Thanksgiving weekend off, as it does most years, Beyoncé and Godzilla stepped in to save the box office. The result, with a famously slow weekend getting a shot in the arm, presages how theaters can help salvage their business as traditional movies falter.

Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, distributed independently by the AMC Theatres chain and Variance, earned an estimated $21 million over its first weekend. That’s among the biggest openings for a concert/music doc and the second-largest post-Thanksgiving debut (sans inflation) after The Last Samurai ($24.2 million, or $42 million adjusted) exactly 20 years ago. As I’ve said for two decades, skipping out on this frame is a mistake, as films like the Tom Cruise historical epic have shown that an appealing enough movie can compete with holiday parties and shopping. But there was more!