The Summer of Joy continues, and she has some company. While the feelings are experiencing all the feels during the month of June, theaters are starting to feel something too: Relief, mostly, especially after so many were poking Anxiety with a stick and making them press all the buttons with different reasons as to why audiences weren’t lighting up The Fall Guy or Furiosa. Shhhhh! Don’t speak too loudly. The killjoys are out there waiting for audiences to be disinterested again, while moviegoers are creating at least one more success story this weekend.
King of the Crop: Inside Out 2 Outpaces Barbie to Cross the $1 Billion Mark
We are just 19 days into the release of Inside Out 2 and the only numbers we can compare it with are the best of all time. $57.4 million from Friday to Sunday represents the ninth-best third weekend of all time. Remarkably, the top four on that list were either December holiday releases (The Force Awakens and the Avatars) or the wide open February/April successes of Black Panther and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. That means only Avengers: Endgame and Infinity War rank higher on the summer list than Inside Out 2’s third weekend. $469.3 million is the eighth-best 17-day total in history, passing up last year’s Barbie, which had $459.3 million after a $53 million third weekend. Inside Out 2 is outpacing Barbie, y’all. We have a Barbie this summer and its not even July yet. The film is on pace for the vicinity of $650 million domestic, and this weekend it surpassed the billion-dollar global mark, becoming the 54th film to do so and the seventh film to achieve it since the pandemic.
The Top 10 and Beyond: A Quiet Place Nets Strong Debut, Horizon Falls Flat
A Quiet Place: Day One has nothing to worry about, though, finishing its debut weekend in second place behind one of the biggest movies of all time. It fulfilled the consistent promise of these films, surpassing both the $50 million and $47 million openings of the first two. That $47 million could have been even higher had it not opened during the vaccine period of the pandemic. Day One’s $53 million start is a solid one, considering its $67 million price tag; it’s the most expensive of the lot after the $17 million of the original and a jump to $61 million for the sequel.
The first two films generated over $638 million, anchored as much by Emily Blunt as this prequel was by Lupita Nyong’o. Day One would need the highest worldwide gross of them all for it to reach a billion. It will be interesting to see how word of mouth does for this one, which got the same B+ Cinemascore as the original and achieved Certified Fresh status with critics, albeit with a slightly lower Tomatometer score than both of its predecessors. If the film sinks in weekend two, it could be looking at $115-120 million like Green Lantern and Lightyear. A drop in the high 50s could still get it into the $125-135 million range like Prometheus, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and Wanted . A drop in the mid-50s could still see it get over $150 million. There are lots of possibilities, but the boost of the July 4 holiday in its second week will certainly help it get into profit very soon, as its worldwide tally stands at $98.5 million.
$53 million is the 10th-best opening for the final weekend in June. Click, Wanted, and Independence Day: Resurgence are three of the nine films to open between $39-53 million this weekend and the only ones to gross less than $140 million. The Marvels and Halloween Kills are the only films to open over $45 million and not gross $100 million. Worldwide, Day One has grossed $78 million. Get that into the $165 million range and we’re talking another film into profit this month.
Opening in third place is the first installment of Kevin Costner’s self-financed multi-chapter Western epic, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1. Warner Bros. decided to keep press out of screenings outside of New York and Los Angeles. Between those who saw it at Cannes and caught up with it recently, we can see why, as it’s currently Rotten on the Tomatometer. It isn’t doing as poorly as The Postman (14%) but it’s also nowhere near those of his directorial efforts like Open Range (Certified Fresh at 79%) or his Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves (Certified Fresh at 87%). The Postman opened to just $6.7 million in its Christmas Thursday-Sunday start back in 1997. That would be about $13.1 million now with inflation. Horizon opened to just $11 million with a budget of either $50 million or as much as $100 million, depending on who you ask. Unless there is a surge of support for a film the studio should want to make available at home before Chapter 2 opens on August 16, the film is probably headed for the $30-40 million range.
Fourth weekend, fourth place for Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which added $10.3 million for a haul now of $165.2 million. The Will Smith/Martin Lawrence buddy cop comedy sequel still holds a $6 million lead over the Channing Tatum/Jonah Hill buddy cop comedy sequel 22 Jump Street, which grossed just $9.8 million in its fourth weekend. It is going to be a very close call for Ride or Die to reach $200 million domestic. If not, we should definitely have our third $190 million-range film of 2024. The film is the sixth of the year to surpass $300 million worldwide ($332 million to date). By this time last year, there were eight, with Elemental eventually getting there. In 2023, 17 films crossed that threshold globally.
Bollywood also released their latest three-hour action epic and it cracked the top five. Kalki 2898 AD grossed $5.5 million over the weekend, and that was after $5.3 million on Thursday alone. That is almost as much as Horizon made in three days and what Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders has grossed in 10. The biker drama fell 66% from last week to just $3.3 million and has a riding total of $16.2 million to date. The Indian rom-com, Jatt & Juliet 3 also cracked the top 10 with $1.3 million.
Sony’s other summer hit, The Garfield Movie grossed $2 million to bring its total to over $89 million domestic and $240 million worldwide. One of the year’s other global $300+ million grossers, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, finally dropped out of the top five to eighth place with $1.7 million. Its domestic total now stands at $168 million. Worldwide it is over $389 million and is right around its profit margin.
From Fox over to Searchlight, who expanded Yorgo Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness into 490 theaters this weekend and it grossed $1.5 million. When The Favourite expanded from 4 theaters (with an opening of $422,410) to 34 theaters it grossed $1.07 million for a per-theater average of $31,537. Poor Things expanded from 9 theaters ($661,230) into 82 theaters and it made $1.28 million for a $15,636 PTA. Kinds of Kindness’ PTA was just $3,061, suggesting it has already peaked and won’t be finding the same audience as his previous two films; the film has grossed $2 million to date. Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding from A24 is still the highest-grossing limited release expansion of the year with $7.8 million. That film expanded into 1,362 theaters in its second weekend and grossed $2.49 million for a PTA of $1,834.
Last week’s darling, Thelma, just fell out of the top 10 with $1.32 million, a very small drop, bringing its total to $5.1 million. It is now the fifth-highest grossing film in Magnolia Pictures’ history behind the documentaries RBG ($14.0 million) and I Am Not Your Negro ($7.1 million) and the features Woman Thou Art Loosed ($6.8 million) and The World’s Fastest Indian ($5.12 million), which it will pass shortly. John Krasinski moved from A Quiet Place over to IF, which fell out of the top 10 in its seventh week with $1.34 million. Its total stands at $109.6 million domestic and over $184 million worldwide. Finally, Crunchyroll’s anime feature Blue Lock The Movie – Episode Nagi made a million bucks in 857 theaters.
On the Vine: Despicable Me 4 to Fight Inside Out 2 for the Family Audience
Inside Out 2 will likely meet its match next weekend as Despicable Me 4 opens to split the family audience that will dominate the top two spots at the box office. Already grossing $25 million internationally, it opens locally on Wednesday just before the July 4 holiday. Just after the holiday, A24 releases the final chapter of Ti West’s horror trilogy, MaXXXine, with Mia Goth. X grossed $11.7 million and Pearl made $9.4 million. Also keep an eye out for Roadside’s release of the insanely violent Kill. Let’s see if it can match the strength of other Bollywood releases.
Full List of Box Office Results: June 28-30, 2024
-
90%
Inside Out 2
(2024)
– $57.4 million ($469.3 million total)
86%
A Quiet Place: Day One
(2024)
– $53 million ($53 million total)
44%
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1
(2024)
– $11 million ($11 million total)
-
64%
Bad Boys: Ride or Die
(2024)
– $10.3 million ($165.2 million total)
80%
Kalki 2898 AD
(2024)
– $5.5 million ($5.5 million total)
-
81%
The Bikeriders
(2023)
– $3.3 million ($16.2 million total)
-
35%
The Garfield Movie
(2024)
– $2 million ($89.6 million total)
-
80%
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
(2024)
– $1.7 million ($168 million total)
-
73%
Kinds of Kindness
(2024)
– $1.5 million ($2 million total)
– –
Jatt & Juliet 3
(2024)
– $1.3 million ($1.3 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 ©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
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