TAGGED AS: Box Office, movies, news
The summer season comes to an end this holiday weekend, and while it ends with a whimper, please do not write any more tales of the box office slump. All things considered, it turned out to be a pretty good summer ($3.62+ billion), albeit one that included an asterisk for its 2023 strike implications rather than one for streaming, which turned out to be as stale a concept as Reaganomics. Funny how a movie about the former president will actually help boost the numbers on an industry economy that they were so worried was going to trickle down to the VOD services.
One of the leaders of the summer is still leading. Deadpool & Wolverine grossed $18.8 million over the holiday and, in the process, crossed the $600 million line — $603.8 million, to be precise — to spend its fifth week at No. 1 through six weeks. That makes it the first film to spend as many as five weeks at No. 1 since Avatar: The Way of Water in 2022-23. Since 2000, the only films to spend as many as five weeks at No. 1 are both Avatars, both Black Panther films, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. D&W is now the 16th film to gross over $600 million, and it has also moved into the top 25 films of all time worldwide (24th to be precise) with $1.258 billion. Notably, seven of those films have been released since the once-in-the-lifetime pandemic, when the talk of theaters and going to the movies being dead began.
Hanging on to second place again this week is Alien: Romulus, making $11.5 million over the holiday. That bring its 18-day total to an estimated $90.9 million. The film is trending closer to the path of The Bourne Legacy with a slight lead over its pace. The Damon-less Bourne film made $85.5 million through 17 days, and with a third weekend of $9.3 million (roughly the same as Romulus’ Fri-to-Sun), Bourne got its Labor Day advantage over its fourth weekend, so it could retake its advantage over Romulus, which is headed for a domestic total in the range of $110-115 million. Worldwide the film has passed $283 million and is a success for Fox and Disney.
Third place goes to Dutch aka the Gipper aka The Great Communicator aka Bonzo’s Buddy. Reagan, the new film from the director of 3 Ninjas: High Noon At Mega Mountain and Bratz, has been languishing on the shelf since being finished in 2021, and this weekend it opened to $10 million. Theatrical releases titled after President’s names (or initials) — and only their name — have included W., Nixon, Lincoln, and JFK (even if that was more about his death than his life). The latter two were successes and the latter three were all critically acclaimed. W. was more mixed and opened with $10.5 million on its way to $25.5 million. The love letter to Reagan with Dennis Quaid in the titular role has been met with low approval from critics. Director Sean McNamara has only had one film to date (out of 19 scored) to register Fresh on the Tomatometer, and that was Race for Space way back in 2001. Only seven of those 19 registered as Hot with audiences, including Reagan (98%), which is now officially Verified Hot. The production cost for Reagan was reportedly $25 million.
Twisters moved back up to fourth place this week, adding $9.5 million to its impressive domestic run. The fifth-highest grossing film of the year is up to over $260 million here at home and a still disappointing $358 million worldwide, as it just crossed $100 million in international territories. Even Furiosa managed to gross its own disappointing $102 million outside America. It Ends With Us has made over $130 million beyond its domestic haul.
Speaking of which, the biggest winner of August and one of the biggest of the summer is It Ends With Us from Sony. It finished fifth through Monday with $9.5 million, bringing its domestic total to $135.8 million. The film continues to trend ahead of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which had $132.1 million through 24 days after a $7.7 million fourth weekend. It Ends With Us had an estimated $7.4 million Friday-to-Sunday, but $150+ million domestic is in the future for the Blake Lively vehicle. Like Alien: Romulus, the film is over $283 million worldwide but on nearly a fourth of its budget ($25 million), this is the fourth most profitable film of the summer and the fifth most profitable of the entire year to date.
Speaking of delays, They Listen aka AfrAId was supposed to come out in August of last year. A title change and possibly a whole missing second act later, the latest Blumhouse cautionary technology tale from About a Boy director Chris Weitz opened with only $4.4 million. This is one of those rare misfires for Blumhouse, even with just a $12 million budget. The company also has the heavily-trailered Speak No Evil remake coming out in just a few weeks, and that will probably offset any disappointment there maybe with these numbers.
Rounding out the top 10, last week’s The Forge and Blink Twice swapped positions, with the former grossing $6.3 million and the latter $6.1 million. That brings their totals, respectively, to $16.0 & $16.7 million. Zoe Kravitz’s film is only about halfway to break itself even, while The Forge should be able to count itself in profit with its $5 million budget. Two more of the most profitable films of the year finish the list with Despicable Me 4 now at $355.6 million domestic ($913 million worldwide) and the biggest film of the year, Inside Out 2, on the verge of passing Jurassic World on the all-time list with $651 million domestic and $1.6665 billion worldwide, passing 2019’s The Lion King for ninth place. Let’s also hear it for Coraline, which grossed another $4 million over the holiday, bringing its 15th Anniversary re-release total to over $30 million.
The Crow fell out of the top 10 in just its second weekend, grossing only $2.3 million through the holiday. The $50 million production has grossed just $8.6 million domestically. Lionsgate also released the Tyrese Gibson/Ray Liotta heist film 1992 into 875 theaters, where it grossed $1.7 million. Bleecker Street did not do much better with the Casey Affleck sci-fi film about a sad astronaut losing his mind — Slingshot — which made just $573,000 in 845 theaters for just a $574 per-theater average from Fri-Sun. Last week, Strange Darling got some attention, especially from critics and horror fans. This week it dropped 55% to $518,000, but it still boasts a total of $2.5 million. And finally, a fan favorite, of course, in Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead got a 20th Anniversary re-release and grossed $600,000 in only 133 theaters.
Say it once. Say it twice. Third time’s a charm. It’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton’s sequel to his 1988 sophomore feature, bringing back Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara to join Jenna Ortega. Expect some big nostalgic numbers for this one, which is likely being lowballed for an $80 million weekend. Don’t be surprised if it goes higher. Critics who reviewed it at premiere in Venice have rated it favorably so far. Also opening is the A24 horror film The Front Room starring Brandy Norwood.
78%
Deadpool & Wolverine
(2024)
– $15.1 million (3-day) / $19.4 million (4-day); $603.7 million total
80%
Alien: Romulus
(2024)
– $9 million (3-day) / $11.17 million (4-da7); $90.6 million total
18%
Reagan
(2024)
–
75%
Twisters
(2024)
– $7.67 million (3-day) / $9.56 million (4-day); $260.4 million total
55%
It Ends With Us
(2024)
– $7.42 million (3-day) / $9.5 million (4-day); $135.8 million total
64%
The Forge
(2024)
– $4.62 million (3-day) / $6.33 million (4-day); $16 million total
75%
Blink Twice
(2024)
– $4.8 million ($3-day) / $6.12 million (4-day); $16.8 million total
56%
Despicable Me 4
(2024)
– $4 million (3-day) / $5.55 million; $355.6 million total
22%
AfrAId
(2024)
– $3.67 million (3-day) / $4.42 million; $4.42 million total
91%
Coraline
(2009)
– $3.1 million (3-day) / $4 million (4-day); $30.27 million total
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast.
[box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
