SATURDAY AM: Refresh for more analysis Warner Bros third weekend of Zach Cregger’s Weapons is coming on stronger than anticipated with $4.67M yesterday on its way to a $15M+ weekend.
The swing factor here is Netflix/Sony Pictures Animation’s Kpop Demon Hunters Singalong which isn’t on any box office charts this AM; not so much because Netflix isn’t reporting and burying their figures in ComScore, but any kind of indication of how the movie is actually doing won’t be apparent until tonight into tomorrow AM. Again, lowball estimates have the second-most watched Netflix title at around $15M+ as well at 1,700 sites. Currently, the overall weekend for all titles is weighing in at $64M, but if Kpop does what it’s suppose to do, then the whole marketplace shoots up to $79M+, which wouldn’t be the lowest grossing frame of the year. Currently that belongs to March 14-16 when Novocaine numbed audiences, with all titles doing $52.1M. A year ago, the entire weekend posted $88.8M led by the fifth weekend of Deadpool & Wolverine ($18.3M). Kpop Demon Hunters is only playing today and Sunday at most circuits minus AMC, which is holding the line on theatrical windows.
Running cume for Weapons by Sunday looks like $115.2M.
With more kids heading back to college (65% were on break Friday, which will fall to 25% on Monday), the arthouse box office has been flooded with edgy and some auteurish films including Focus Features Honey Don’t! ($3.2M opening), Bleecker Street’s David Mckenzie directed Relay ($2M estimated), A24’s Nhe Zha II ($1.4M), Vertical/AGC Studios’ Eden from Ron Howard ($1.36M) and NEON’s Splitsville from Michael Angelo Covino (estimated $90K at 5 locations in what is the weekend’s best theater average at $18K). It’s almost like an advertisement for the specialty sector itself. This is part for the course as August tees up potential awards season titles, and begins to set the table for the fall, letting upscale and sophisticated moviegoers know that more serious fare is on the marquee. Still, nothing is breaking out here with soft ticket sales all around except for Splitsville.
Top 10:
- Weapons (NL) 3,631 (+181) theaters, Fri $4.67M (-38%), 3-day $15M (-39%) Total $115.2M/Wk 3
- Freakier Friday (Dis) 3,675 (-300) theaters, Fri $2.8M (-38%), 3-day $9M (-37%), Total $70.3M/Wk 3
3. Fantastic Four: First Steps (Dis) 3,190 (-165) theaters Fri $1.6M (-35%) 3-day $5.8M (-36%), Total $257.1M/Wk 5
4. Bad Guys 2 (Uni) 3,288 (92) theaters, Fri $1.28M (-34%), 3-day $5.1M (-32%), Total $66.1M/Wk 4
5. Nobody 2 (Uni) 3,282 (+22) theaters, Fri $1.05M (-73%), 3-day $3.5M (-62%), Total $16.3M/Wk 2
5. Superman (WB) 2,388 (-317) theaters, Fri $955K (-33%), 3-day $3.5M (-33%), Total $347M/Wk 7
7. Honey Don’t (Foc) 1,317 theaters, Fri $1.44M, 3-day $3.2M/Wk 1
7. The Naked Gun (Par) 2,776 (-251) theaters, Fri $900K (-35%), 3-day $3.2M (-35%), Total $47.8M/Wk 4
9. Jurassic World Rebirth (Uni) 2,100 (-170) theaters, Fri $570k (-26%), 3-day $2.1M (-29%), Total $335.5M/Wk 8
10. Relay (Apple/WB) 1,483 theaters, Fri $1M, 3-day $2M/Wk 1
Honey Don’t! is doing 33% more money on less screens than Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s previous Lesbian comedy caper, Drive Away Dolls which opened to $2.4M with a $1K theater average and a C CinemaScore. Honey Don’t!’s is $2,4k per screen. No CinemaScore, but the audience isn’t excited about this single Coen brother comedy like they were with No Country for Old Men, giving it 43% on Rotten Tomatoes audience and a horrible 1 1/2 stars and 28% definite recommend on Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak. Those who showed up for the Margaret Qualley, Chris Evans and Aubrey Plaza romp were women at 54% with 62% Caucasian, 20% Hispanic and Latino, 7% Asian American and 7% Black. No PLFs, but a soft result despite hitting its tracking. The movie’s play is on the coasts with NYC AMC Lincoln Square earning $24K to date.
When it comes to these arthouse releases, many of these distributors aren’t spending much on P&A, including Bleecker Street and Vertical. It’s how this post pandemic indie model largely works to tee up films in theatrical in order to send them to home entertainment where the real cash is made.
Relay, with good critic Rotten Tomatoes scores of 75% certified fresh is seeing its best playability in East, South, Midwest and West with AMC Lincoln Square NYC up to around $5K so far, the pic’s highest grossing venue in North America. The Riz Ahmed-Lily James-Sam Worthington action thriller world premiered at TIFF last year and Bleecker Street acquired the pic two months later. Movie follows a broker of lucrative payoffs who is between corrupt corporations and the individuals who threaten them. He breaks his own rules when a new client seeks his protection to stay alive.
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FRIDAY AM: Only one reported preview last night and that’s Focus Features’ Ethan Coen-directed and co-written Honey Don’t!, which did $525,000 in both Thursday and early previews ahead of its 1,300-theater opening Friday, The frame is expected to be between $3M-$4M. Unlike other indie releases on the marquee this weekend, Honey Don’t! is playing on a full schedule at theaters, not split.
It’s Coen’s second feature with wife Tricia Cooke on which they both wrote and produce; she has long edited for the Coen brothers. Coen and Cooke’s previous movie, which also starred Margaret Qualley, was 2024’s Drive-Away Dolls, which did $450K in previews on its way to a not wowing $2.4M opening at 2,280 theaters. Reviews were much better on Drive-Away Dolls at 64% fresh than for Honey Don’t!, which stands at 49% on Rotten Tomatoes. The latest movie follows a Western small-town private eye played by Qualley who is try to solve a local case involving a sex-crazed preacher played by Chris Evans. Meanwhile, she’s having an affair with a cop played by Aubrey Plaza. The $20M Working Title production was the closing movie at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Meanwhile, New Line’s Weapons passed the century mark Thursday at the domestic box office with a $2.4M take for the day, off 11%. The movie ends week 2 with $36.2M, down 43%, for a running cume of $100.2M. The original movie is soaring 42% ahead of another New Line August horror release, Annabelle: Creation, which stood at $64M after two weeks and finaled at $102M stateside.
Weapons’ third weekend is expected to be around $13.5M, with sources believing that Netflix/Sony Pictures Animation’s Kpop Demons Hunters sing-along in its mere Saturday and Sunday play sans AMC will outstrip the horror pic with around $15M+. If the anime movie falls short, it’s only because it was frontloaded. But sources are going nuts for it.
Week’s top 5:
- Weapons (WB) 3,450 theaters, Thu $2.4M (-11%), Wk $36.2M (-43%), Total $100.2M/Wk 2
- Freakier Friday (Dis) 3,975 theaters, Thu $1.37M (-12%), Wk $21M (-48%), Total $61.3M/Wk 2
- Fantastic Four: First Steps (Dis) 3,355 theaters, Thu $864K (-9%), Wk $13.1M (-44%), Total $251.3M/Wk 4
- Nobody 2 (Uni) 3,250 theaters, Thu $636K (-17%), Wk $12.8M/Wk 1
- Bad Guys 2 (Uni) 3,380 (-480) theaters, Thu $742K (-25%), Wk $11.3M (-32%), Total $61M/Wk 3
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