The Autumn movie season continues with one of its biggest hits ever this weekend. When Stephen King’s It helped the month of September have its biggest weekend ever back in 2017 (a title it still holds today), it was followed by a weekend whose top 10 fell off 33.7%. When It: Chapter Two opened the second-best September weekend ever two years later, it fell 21.5%, thanks in part to being joined by a $45 million opening for Hustlers. Last week’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice led the way for the new second-best September weekend ever. This weekend the top 10 is down 38.9% as scattered audiences moved around to a few R-rated films and one with a bigger, capital “R” to it.
King of the Crop: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Holds on to Top Spot
Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice easily hung onto No. 1 for a second straight week, but it did take a bit of a tumble. A 53% drop down to $51.6 million places the film with $188 million practically right in between Stephen King’s It after 10 days ($218.8 million) and It: Chapter Two ($152.6 million). BB’s drop was also in the middle of the R-rated It films, which fell 51.3% and 56.5%, respectively. Family audiences could be gravitating towards Transformers and other Wild Robots in the coming weeks, dropping it a bit further. However it already maintains a $35+ million advantage over It: Chapter Two, including a $12 million higher second weekend. So $260 million is still very much in play, and even another 50% drop next week would keep it $8 million ahead of Chapter Two’s pace, so it could still match our early projections. Right now, $250-270 million appears to be the landing. The film is over $264 million worldwide and should be well into profit as well.
Rotten Returns: The Killer’s Game Is Dead on Arrival
The Killer’s Game with Dave Bautista opened this weekend, in case you missed it — and it seems most of you did, considering it grossed just $2.6 million. Out of the nine films that Lionsgate has opened in over 2,000 theaters this year, this is the eighth to open below $10 million and the second to open below $5 million (second in a row, in fact, after the disastrous reboot of The Crow, which is not even going to gross $10 million total). Not to say that they haven’t had some success, thanks to low-budget horror like Imaginary and The Strangers: Chapter 1 doing well enough to turn a profit. But this is also the year of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and Borderlands, the only LG film to open over $10 million this year while also quite possibly becoming the biggest bomb in the studio’s history.
The Top 10 and Beyond: Speak No Evil Leads Pack of Lackluster New Releases
Opening in second place this week is the Blumhouse Productions remake of the Danish film (but still in English) Speak No Evil. One of the quicker turnarounds from original-to-remake, the 2022 film now refashioned by The Woman in Black director James Watkins grossed $11.5 million. The much darker 2022 film debuted at Sundance that year and got a very limited release by IFC Films. The 2024 version was put together for a reported $15 million, and reviews are solid, registering a Tomatometer score higher than the original’s (both are Certified Fresh). Films opening in this range this month usually end up in the $25-35 million domestic territory. A little sprinkling of international cash should move this into the win column for Blumhouse.
Falling to its lowest point to date in third place is Deadpool & Wolverine with $5.2 million. This is its eighth straight week in the top five, and it could join the likes of The Matrix, 2019’s The Lion King, The Sixth Sense, and the Jumanji sequels for a ninth go next week. That brings its total up to $621.5 million. Inside Out 2 finished its eighth weekend with $6.8 million and $626.9 million, which should secure it as the top film of 2024 unless a miracle occurs. This is the fourth time that a year has had two $600+ million grossers alongside 2015 (Jurassic World, The Force Awakens), 2018 (Black Panther, Incredibles 2, Avengers: Infinity War) and 2022 (Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water), and the second time since the pandemic. D&W is trending very closely with last year’s Barbie right now ($5.7 million eighth weekend, $620.2 million 52-day total), but bigger drops over the next two weeks could keep it from hitting the Gerwig numbers. D&W is up to $1.305 billion worldwide and is about a million dollars away from passing Frozen for 22nd place.
Box office cashiers are hearing more people ask a question than they would probably rather not engage with this weekend. Unless people are walking up asking one for “the Matt Walsh film”, they are just saying Am I Racist? Hey, that’s the name of the movie, folks, and $4.7 million went into that pocket so people from 1,517 theaters can find out the answer. Hanging around in sixth place is Sean McNamara’s biopic Reagan, with Dennis Quaid. Another $2.8 million has it getting close to its reported budget of $25 million. (The film has grossed $23.2 million in 17 days.) But hold on there! About half of that money must trickle down to the theaters, so its not exactly balanced yet and could leave theaters with a deficit that another film may need to clean up.
Alien: Romulus crossed $100 million this weekend with $2.4 million. The film may be coming in on the slightly lower end of expectations based on its first few weeks. But when you quadruple your budget as Romulus has done worldwide with $330 million, there is little to be disappointed about. Unless, of course, you wish you were It Ends With Us, which has quadrupled its budget – times three! – with over $325 million worldwide. It grossed another $2.2 million this weekend for a nearly $145 million domestic total. Rounding out the top 10 is The Forge in ninth place with $2 million, bringing its total to over $24 million, nearly five times its budget. Fathom Events opened God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust. All others paid cash to see it since its release on Thursday and it has grossed $1.8 million in that time.
Outside of the top 10, the Amazon/MGM release of My Old Ass debuted to $171,000 in just 7 theaters, just outside the year’s 10 best per-theater average openings. It will expand further in the coming weeks. Kevin Smith’s The 4:30 Movie grossed $115,000 in 245 theaters. The Front Room with Brandy Norwood fell 73% down to just $427,000. Its total stands at $2.6 million and will be the weakest showing for an A24 wide release in over 2,000 theaters to date. On the other side of things and still in the million-dollar category, Twisters made another $1.2 million, bringing its domestic total to $266.3 million. Despicable Me 4 also grossed $1.1 million, bringing its domestic total to $359.4 million and its worldwide haul to $940 million, ultimately coming up just a bit short (within $10 million) of catching The Secret Life of Pets to become Illumination’s top-grossing film in North America. Also on the animated front, GKids’ Dan Da Dan: First Encounter made $1 million in 610 theaters.
On the Vine: Transformers One Takes Fans Back to Cybertron
Next week, Paramount tries to reinvigorate the Transformers franchise by going back to where it all began – animation. Transformers One opens and should have the track to take the top spot away from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Also look for Lionsgate to try and get that $10 million opening for horror film Never Let Go with Halle Berry; the odds are not in its favor. A24 also opens another Sundance favorite, A Different Man, with Sebastian Stan. The film is already Certified Fresh with critics, while Transformers One looks to be on its way as well, with glowing early reviews.
Full List of Box Office Results: September 13-15, 2024
-
77%
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
(2024)
– $51.6 million ($188 million total)
-
82%
Speak No Evil
(2024)
– $11.5 million ($11.5 million total)
-
78%
Deadpool & Wolverine
(2024)
– $5.2 million ($621.5 million total)
-
– –
Am I Racist?
(2024)
– $4.7 million ($4.7 million total)
-
17%
Reagan
(2024)
– $2.8 million ($23.2 million total)
-
39%
The Killer’s Game
(2024)
– $4.7 million ($4.7 million total)
-
80%
Alien: Romulus
(2024)
– $2.4 million ($101.2 million total)
-
57%
It Ends With Us
(2024)
– $2.025 million ($144.8 million total)
-
73%
The Forge
(2024)
– $2.01 million ($20.7 million total)
-
– –
God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust
(2024)
– $1.4 million ($1.4 million total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his podcast Movie Madness.
[box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by Parisa Taghizadeh/©Warner Bros.
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