TAGGED AS: Box Office, movies, news, Summer
The John Wick “World” was no match for the Mouse house this weekend. “R”-rated films have been having a good couple of months but families are not letting go of their live-action Stitch. At least not until next week with their live-action Dragon. The numbers for Ballerina are disappointing for a variety of reasons. Perhaps Lionsgate should have trusted more in critics whom they delayed reactions from and instead ended up with a path possibly closer to last year’s Furiosa.
For the second time this year, Disney has held onto the top spot at the box office for three straight weeks. They did it earlier this year with Captain America: Brave New World and late last year with Moana 2. This week, it was Lilo & Stitch’s turn, with $32.5 million in its third weekend, bringing its 17-day total to $335.8 million. How close can it get to eclipsing A Minecraft Movie (which finally fell out of the top ten after 10 weeks?) Let’s look again at the Doctor Strange sequel numbers. It had $342.7 million after a $32.3 million third weekend and it finished with $411.3 million. Stitch is likely to have better drops than Strange and depending on where it comes in against Toothless next week, it could still have a chance to become the highest-grossing domestic release of the year for the time being. It also continues to ride the train towards a billion with $772 million globally.
After a delay and months of reshoots on Ballerina, Lionsgate was a little sketchy on its review prospects and encouraged press to hold any negativity for their written reviews. Blurb away those positive reactions at will but maybe wait a little for more thought-out reactions. Truth is that’s been the unspoken approach to the dual embargo approach for years. Lionsgate just said it out loud. But it turns out the reviews have been pretty decent. 76% is not in the 86-94% range of the John Wick films, but not bad at all given the stigma of delays, reshoots and overhauling. Seems like it mostly worked for a lot of critics.
As for the public at large, they spent $25 million on Ballerina this weekend. That is below John Wick: Chapter 2 ($30.4 million) when audiences were catching onto its pleasures. Last year, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga opened to just $26.3 million and finished with only $66 million domestic. Before the wrong people start attaching views about replacing a male in a well-known franchise with a female one, remember that 2016’s Ghostbusters grossed about as much as any of the sequels and Ocean’s 8 outgrossed both of Eleven’s sequels. Back in 2008, Angelina Jolie played a female assassin in Wanted and the “R”-rated comic book adaptation opened to over $50 million and made over $134 million. Two years later Salt opened to $36 million and grossed over $118 million.
Playing half full with Lionsgate they should know that two out of every three films to open between $25-35 million in June have made it to $100 million (and five out of nine “R”-rated films – though only one since 2015.) That percentage overall goes down to 39% if its estimate falls below $25 million, but the bulk of those that have made it opening between $20-25 million have been “R” action films like Eraser, Con Air, Face/Off, The Patriot, 2000’s Shaft and Baby Driver.
The budget on Ballerina is reportedly between $80-90 million. The last two John Wick films grossed over $326 million and $440 million worldwide. The franchise was at $1.024 billion before Ballerina and Lionsgate was hoping this one could still add at least another $250 million to that total. Adding in international sales, the film has made just $51 million so far. This is the second week in a row that tracking services have inflated the potential for franchise spinoff sequels. Both Karate Kid: Legends and Ballerina were expected to begin in the $30 million range only to be knocked back.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning comes in third this week with $15 million. Amongst the eight films, that is only the fifth best third weekend, but it still has the second-best 17-day total with $149.2 million. Only three of the films ever passed $200 million domestic. Fallout which had $161.3 million after 17 days; the second film which had $145.7 million and Ghost Protocol which started with a limited IMAX rollout over the Christmas holiday and built its audience from there. Memorial Day openers The Day After Tomorrow and Pearl Harbor had respective third weekends of $14.53 million and $14.72 million. If Reckoning manages to follow Harbor’s path, which would amount to under 40% drops for the next five weeks, it could get itself over the milestone. Otherwise, it is looking around $185-190 million. As of this weekend, it is the third highest-grossing U.S. release worldwide with $450 million, passing Brave New World and ranked behind only Minecraft & Stitch.
Karate Kid: Legends fell back to fourth with $8.7 million and now has made $35.4 million in ten days. Rob Schneider’s film, The Animal, opened the first week of June in 2001 and had made $35.6 million after ten days and a $9.6 million second weekend. That’s right – the new Karate Kid film has fallen behind the pace of an old Rob Schneider film. Based on early tracking this film was a $100 million contender. Now it may be struggling just for the $50 million range. Right now its at $74 million globally and may not recoup its costs while still in theaters.
The fourth weekend of Final Destination: Bloodlines resulted in another $6.5 million. After 24 days, the franchise leader is at $123.6 million domestic. Going back to 1998, Roland Emmerich’s derided version of Godzilla was at $118.9 million after a $6.2 million fourth go. This keeps Bloodlines on a pace to the $140 million region. Worldwide, the film is over $257 million. Last week’s “R”-rated horror entry, Bring Her Back, fell to $3.5 million. A24’s release of the latest from the Phillippou Brothers is up to $14.1 million. Their debut, Talk To Me, may have opened in late summer 2023 but it never dropped higher than 40% until its seventh weekend. That despite Meg 2 and The Last Voyage of the Demeter opening back-to-back weeks. Talk To Me was never even in the top five and yet remained in the top ten for six weeks. That is solid word of mouth.
Last week, Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme opened in six theaters to the best per-theater-average of the year ($93,417). This week Focus expanded the film into 1,600 theaters just as they did in 2023 for Asteroid City. It grossed $6.2 million compared to City which had an $845,143 start (a $140,857 PTA, the best ever in the modern era for a six-theater launch) and expanded into 1,67 theaters with $9.05 million. From a top PTA to what looks like one of his lowest-grossing films to date is showing that Anderson is not widening his loyal fanbase. Only The Darjeeling Limited, The French Dispatch (released in October 2021 during the pandemic) and Rushmore (his second film) grossed less than $20 million. The Phoenician Scheme was made for $30 million, his third highest budget after The Life Aquatic ($50 million) and Fantastic Mr. Fox ($40 million). It has made $18 million globally so far.
Rounding out the top ten is GKids’ release of Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye which grossed $3.09 million in 1,080 theaters. Next up is the champion of “R”-rated horror and soon to be champion of original “R”-rated films, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, making $2.9 million. That brings its domestic total to $272.6 million. It is now less than $5 million away from besting The Hangover ($277.3 million) for that particular category. Globally the film is over $355 million.
Then we have Marvel’s Thunderbolts* just about fulfilling our prophecy for weeks that it was not hitting $200 million. $2.5 million in its sixth and likely final weekend in the top ten brings it to $186.4 million. Captain America: Brave New World was over $192 million at this point with a $4 million sixth weekend. Thunderbolts* will be just the sixth film in the MCU to spend six weeks or less in the top ten. Black Widow even maybe a return to the top ten over Labor Day weekend in 2021. Thunderbolts* is up to just $380 million worldwide.
How about another “R” horror film for the charts? Sean Byrne, the director of The Loved Ones and The Devil’s Candy (two horror films you should seek out if you have never seen) arrives with first film in ten years with the shark-based serial killer terror of Dangerous Animals. The IFC release made $1.53 million this weekend in 1,636 theaters. A24’s Friendship fell out of the top ten with $1.08 million. It has made $14.7 million to date. Angel Studios’ The Last Rodeo made $1.02 million and has grossed nearly $13 million. The 25th Anniversary (and a few months) re-release of Kevin Smith’s Dogma resulted in $978,000 in 700 theaters. Since Thursday, the film has made another $2.08 million.
We’ll see more with an expansion next week but Neon may have flubbed the release strategy of The Life of Chuck. They opened Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novella in 16 theaters this weekend which resulted in $216,000. The $13,502 per theater average just barely fits into the top 15 of multi-theater launches this year. UA’s release of Till back in 2022 opened to $242,269 in 16 theaters and went on to gross just $9 million. After the film premiered and won the Audience Award at the Toronto film festival last year, Neon chose not to play any more festivals and relied on a few word-of-mouth screenings last month. The last 12 People’s Choice winners (and 15 of last 16) out of TIFF were Best Picture nominees but were all released the same year and had distribution already at the fest. The film has an 81% with critics, but if it dies on the vine will there be confidence in giving it a full push come awards season?
Three weeks after the release of one live-action remake of a beloved animated film, we get another with How To Train Your Dragon. Will it soar to the heights of Lilo & Stitch or be grounded by another family release the week after? For the adults out there, Celine Song (the director of Oscar nominee Past Lives) is back with another romantic triangle in Materialists featuring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal.
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
