By Patrick Hipes

‘Elf the Musical’  Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

Elf the Musical, which returned to Broadway last month for a limited run, grossed $2,230,419 across eight performances for the week ending December 22, breaking the house record at the Marquis Theatre to highlight the pre-holiday box office frame.

The revival, which stars Mean Girls Tony nominee Grey Hanson as Buddy the Elf and Sean Astin as Santa, beat its previous week’s gross of $2,033,784 and grew to 98% capacity at the massive Marquis. The show was fourth overall in box office for the week behind only the usual suspects Wicked (a frame-leading $3,024,095 at the Gershwin), The Lion King ($2,897,476 at the Minskoff) and Hamilton ($2,491,550 at the Richard Rodgers), all of which also saw week-over-week gains.

Based on the now-holiday staple 2023 movie starring Will Ferrell and directed by Jon Favreau, Elf the Musical first opened on Broadway during the 2010-2011 season with a book by Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin, with songs by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin. It returned to New York for a 2012-2013 holiday run with a revised book. It had record-breaking holiday runs in the West End in 2022 and 2023.

For the frame, Elf surpassed the previous Marquis record held by Beetlejuice, which grossed $2,146,200 million the week ending January 8, 2023. Elf is set to run through January 5.