TAGGED AS: Box Office, movies, news
Blake Lively has enough to deal with from her on-screen significant other this week, let alone trying to draw audiences away from her real-life husband. But that is exactly what she did this weekend. Even if the Colleen Hoover fans weren’t going to (or already saw) the big movie in theaters right now, Lively & Co. have given August a second big movie, one that may end up being the month’s biggest success (and one of the year’s as well).
Not often do spouses compete with each other movie-to-movie in the same weekend, but Ryan Reynolds certainly faced some major competition from his. Deadpool & Wolverine still just managed to stay afloat with $54.1 million in its third weekend. That’s a very respectable 44% drop for the 13th-best third weekend in history, just behind Spider-Man: No Way Home ($56 million), Marvel’s The Avengers ($55.6 million), and Jurassic World ($54.5 million), and just ahead of Barbie ($53 million). That brings its running total to $494 million, the seventh-best 17-day total ever, just behind Black Panther ($501.7 million) and, again, Jurassic World ($500.3 million) while being ahead of this year’s Inside Out 2 by over $24 million. But Disney/Pixar’s sequel had a $57.5 million third weekend, so we have a horse race on our hands right now. Those weekday numbers are going to start to go down this week with schools getting back in session. But D&W is clearly locking in somewhere north of $600 million domestic, and with $550 million internationally, the film has joined the billion dollar club ($1.029 billion), marking the 11th for the MCU (and the 31st for Disney) and will be in the Top 50 of all time this upcoming week.
There is no spin for the numbers of Eli Roth’s Borderlands. Whether or not it is fair to give him full label credit for the film, which began filming in 2021 and had selective reshoots without him (courtesy of Deadpool director Tim Miller), the numbers are disastrous all around. Reportedly coming in with a budget as high as $120 million, the video game adaptation grossed just $8.8 million this weekend while also posting one of the lowest Tomatometer scores of any wide release this year. It has settled lower than that of Madame Web (11%), Not Another Church Movie (11%) and Tarot (18%). It also received a D+ Cinemascore, the second lowest of the year above The Exorcism’s D.
As for its box office numbers, it is below even the video game adaptations of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within ($11.4 million), Assassin’s Creed ($10.2 million) and 2007’s Hitman ($10.2 million). At best, the film may hope to get over $20 million domestic, but a big drop next weekend could jeopardize even that. The film now belongs to a less-than-elite class of summer films that cost over $100 million and opened to less than $10 million. Borderlands now joins The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Around the World in 80 Days (2004), Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (released in 2021, the second summer of the pandemic), and this year’s Fly Me to the Moon.
Despite seven games, comic series and various novels, all the players of Borderlands could not match the readers of It Ends With Us. Justin Baldoni’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s 2016 domestic abuse/rom-drama novel may have gotten mixed reviews from critics, but its supporters dished out another $50 million over the weekend. That is the 11th-best opening ever for a film in August, and it is the highest ever to be headlined by a woman, namely Blake Lively. Annabelle: Creation ($35 million) and Crazy Rich Asians ($26.5 million) were the previous highs. August has also been the home of previous late summer adaptations like The Help, which grossed over $169 million, and Eat Pray Love, which got just over $80 million. It Ends With Us is going to fly by the latter, and there is unlikely to be another film opening this month that will surpass it. Could it be the end-of-summer, word-of-mouth success that joins the likes of The Help and Crazy Rich Asians’ $174+ million haul? The film also grossed another $30 million overseas.
Third place belongs to Twisters this week, still doing well in its fourth weekend, at least domestically. Its 24-day total with another $15 million comes to $222.2 million. The film is actually in some pretty good company, just about $5 million off the pace of Inception, though that film had a higher $18.7 million fourth weekend. Nolan’s film also opened on the third weekend of July and cruised through August to over $281 million. Small drops over the next several weeks could find Twisters following suit and getting over $270 million. If only the film was doing as well overseas. It has earned just $87.8 million to date, putting it over $300 million globally, but it is still about $140 million away from reaching its goal of squeaking out a theatrical profit. Tornadoes were popular overseas in 1996 (or maybe it was just Bill Paxton). It’s rare to have such a major success in North America come up short like that.
Fifth place belongs to a true global success story and one that’s no surprise. Universal/Illumination’s Despicable Me 4 remained in the top five for its sixth straight week with $8 million. That puts its domestic total at $330.1 million and worldwide over $807 million. It is also now making a play to become the highest-grossing domestic release of not just the franchise but all of Illumination’s films. At 40 days of release, DM4 is only about $8 million off the pace of both The Secret Life of Pets ($338.9 million) and Despicable Me 2 ($338.4 million). The latter had just a $5.7 million sixth weekend, while the former was just over $9 million. DM4 is headed somewhere in the vicinity of $365-370 million, and while it may come up short of a billion that the third film and Minions both hit, it is without question one of the most profitable films of the year by far.
Dropping from third down to sixth this week is M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap. While the film does have its fervent defenders, reviews on the not-screened-for-press film are still middle-of-the-road, and its $6.7 million second weekend is the second lowest of his career. Behind Lady in the Water ($7.14 million) and Old ($6.86 million) and ahead of only Knock at the Cabin ($5.42 million),
Trap is now at $28.6 million and still likely headed for over $40 million, but it will be Shyamalan’s third straight film to finish under $50 million. With just $16.6 million overseas so far, his latest still needs about another $45 million to break even.
However the final domestic numbers play out, Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 is still likely to be the biggest success of the year. Another $4.9 million this weekend puts the film at $636.4 million and completely ahead of Jurassic World’s pace. Besting that film’s ninth weekend ($1.94 million), Inside Out 2 has also passed its total at the end of the exact same weekend ($635.6 million). That should guarantee it ninth place among all-time first-run releases. Avengers: Infinity War is a bit out of its range, even with its $2.58 million ninth weekend. It had $669.5 million by the end of its second-to-last June weekend and finished with $678.8 million. Worldwide the film is $1.594 billion, the 10th best in history. Jurassic World is eighth with $1.67 billion. Inside Out 2 would need about another $70 million to catch 2019’s The Lion King for ninth.
Neon did not exactly give the kind of marketing campaign to Tillman Singer’s Cuckoo that they did for Oz Perkins’ Longlegs. It had itself a festival run that included Berlin, SXSW, and the Chicago Critics Film Festival (which I produce), but opened this weekend to just $3 million in 1,500 theaters, which only looks low compared to Longlegs’ big $22 million start, when in reality it’s the third-best start ever for Neon for its eighth initial wide release. The $7 million production opened just a bit less than Immaculate ($5.33 million) did this year. Only 17 of Neon’s platformed releases grossed as much as Cuckoo did in just three days of nationwide release. This is the way.
Speak of the devil – or the guy played by Nicolas Cage – Longlegs hung around for one last go in the top 10. Another $2 million in its fifth weekend puts the $10 million production over $71 million. It is over $90 million globally, but even if Parasite’s $254 million global haul is unmatched for Neon, this is still quite the winner for them, as they plan on being in the Oz Perkins business in the future. Far less a success is one of Sony’s few misfires this summer in Harold and the Purple Crayon. Delayed from its original release date more than 18 months ago, the $40 million production drew up $3.1 million in its sophomore weekend for a total of $12.8 million. Sony’s victory with the $25 million production It Ends With Us this weekend, plus the $400 million line just crossed by Bad Boys: Ride or Die, practically makes this an afterthought on their books though.
A24 expanded Sing Sing again this weekend (barely) to 39 theaters where it grossed $227,000. It has grossed $822,000 in five weeks of release, but its per-theater average is falling and is now at just $5,820. A big window may have been missed here. Meanwhile, Focus got its festival-tested film Didi from Sundance into 200 theaters this weekend, where it grossed $650,000. Granted, that’s just a $3,250 PTA, but its gross is already twice that of Sing Sing with $1.63 million. Another Sundance entry this year, Kneecap, was grabbed by Sony Classics and grossed $103,000 for a total of $819,000 in its second weekend. India Donaldson’s Good One (also a part of the Chicago Critics Film Festival, along with Sing Sing) also debuted at Sundance this year and made $30,000 in just three theaters in New York and Los Angeles.
The film that hopes to ultimately take the top spot away from Deadpool & Wolverine is Alien: Romulus. The Fede Alvarez addition to the sci-fi/horror franchise opens next weekend hoping for something closer to Prometheus rather than Covenant numbers.
79%
Deadpool & Wolverine
(2024)
– $54.1 million ($494.3 million total)
57%
It Ends With Us
(2024)
– $50 million ($50 million total)
75%
Twisters
(2024)
– $15 million ($222.2 million total)
10%
Borderlands
(2024)
– $8.8 million ($8.8 million total)
56%
Despicable Me 4
(2024)
– $8 million ($330.1 million total)
57%
Trap
(2024)
– $6.7 million ($28.6 million total)
91%
Inside Out 2
(2024)
– $4.9 million ($636.4 million total)
25%
Harold and the Purple Crayon
(2024)
– $3.1 million ($12.8 million total)
77%
Cuckoo
(2024)
– $3 million ($3 million total)
85%
Longlegs
(2024)
– $2 million ($71.2 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 ©Marvel Studios
