It’s good news for Disney and Pixar and bad news for Warner Bros. and DC at this weekend’s box office, as “Toy Story 5” reached $300 million at the domestic box office in just 10 days of box office play with a $73 million second weekend, while the new release “Supergirl” is on its way to an anemic $38 million domestic/$68 million global opening against a reported $170 million budget.
For comparison, “Supergirl” is slightly opening below the $39 million domestic/$84 million start of Sony/Marvel’s 2022 misfire “Morbius,” which rapidly lost audience interest and grossed just $167 million worldwide. Even if next weekend’s Fourth of July holiday helps minimize the second weekend drop, it’s extremely unlikely that the movie will even pass the $271 million global total of the 2023 DC bust “The Flash,” let alone reach the $300 million needed to break even theatrically.
That’s because reception among audiences hasn’t been the sort of effusive praise needed to compete against the wildly popular “Toy Story 5,” with a B- on CinemaScore, a 52% “definite recommend” score on PostTrak — women were 62% — and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 56% critics and 77% audience.
As recent Comic-Con-adjacent titles like “Masters of the Universe” and “The Mandalorian and Grogu” have shown, general audiences have been quick to ditch films that get even slightly better scores than these, and the overwhelming appetite for superhero films that allowed even tepidly received 2010s offerings like “Suicide Squad” and “Venom” to blow past a half-billion worldwide is long gone.
After “Superman” got James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Universe reboot off to a good start with a $618 million run last year, they and their DC Studios team have work to do to build mass interest in films based on lesser-known characters like “Clayface,” the $40 million horror film based on the shapeshifting Batman villain coming this fall. DC’s next tentpole film will be “Man of Tomorrow,” a “Superman” sequel coming next summer, written and directed by Gunn.
It’s questionable at this point whether the concept of a cinematic universe is even an effective selling point for audiences anymore, given the recent struggles of Marvel Studios to maintain widespread interest in its timeline, relying on the return of actors like Chris Evans to sell “Avengers: Doomsday.”
“Toy Story 5,” meanwhile, is speeding towards final theatrical totals north of $500 million domestic and $1 billion worldwide, as the film drew a global second weekend of $77.5 million for a $299.7 million cume.
With strong midweek grosses from families turning out for theater discount days, the Pixar sequel is drawing four-quadrant audiences on a daily basis and should become the highest grossing “Toy Story” film before inflation adjustment, even if the coming release of Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters” next weekend keeps the movie from reaching the $1.24 billion global total “Incredibles 2” made in 2018.
Focus Features’ “Obsession” is third with $9.4 million in its seventh weekend, bringing its domestic total to $233 million as it draws closer and closer to the $279 million total that “Sinners” made last year.
In fourth is Paramount’s “Jackass: Best and Last” with an $8.4 million opening from 2,855 locations. Mixing compilations of the dumbest and funniest stunts from the 2001 MTV and four subsequent feature films with new stunts, “Best and Last” is making roughly a third of the $23.1 million that the completely new “Jackass Forever” made in February 2022, but should still turn a small theatrical profit against its $10 million budget. The movie has an 88% critics and 86% audience RT score and an A- on CinemaScore, with a primarily millennial male audience — 67% were men and 72% were over 25, with 39% between the ages of 25 and 34.
Universal/Amblin’s “Disclosure Day” completes the top 5 as it continues to drop off fast with a $8.1 million third weekend and a $94 million domestic total. The Steven Spielberg sci-fi film continues to play primarily to the director’s older-skewing fans and will need post-theatrical revenue for most of its profit as it is stretching out to $100 million domestic and $200 million worldwide against a reported $115 million budget. Finally, A24 released Olivia Wilde’s adult dramedy “The Invite” on seven screens this weekend, grossing an estimated $384,000 for a per theater average of $54,800. Starring Wilde alongside Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton, the film was acquired for $10 million by A24 out of Sundance and has a 93% Rotten Tomatoesscore.
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