The box office saw a strong showing from It Ends with Us but it wasn’t enough to de-throne the current box office champ, Deadpool & Wolverine.
The Box Office Belongs To The Reynolds-Lively Household
As per Box Office Mojo, this weekend once again saw Deadpool & Wolverine come out on top with $54 million. This weekend now placed the movie over $1 billion at the worldwide box office. It’s now the second film to do so in 2024, after Disney’s other Summer hit, Inside Out 2.
It Ends with Us was not too far behind. The movie brought in $50 million in second place which I predicted last week. This is quite impressive and a huge amount more than the $20 million to $30 million the movie projected to make. This is Blake Lively’s biggest opening of her career in a lead role; but also a huge win for Sony as the movie cost $25 million to make before marketing, which would put it at $50 million. So essentially the movie has broken even on its opening weekend and any other revenue is simply icing on the cake.
Either way, you slice it, this is a huge win for the overall box office and theatres as this weekend was up 35% over the same time last year; and 19% more than 2019, just before the pandemic. The last time a married couple had their films top the box office was in 1990 with the release of Die Hard 2 starring Bruce Willis and Ghost starring Demi Moore.
The Rest Of The Box Office
Twisters dropped from second to third, making $15 million. The movie dropped 34% over last week.
It wasn’t enough for Borderlands which really needed a perfect storm of good reviews, audience satisfaction, and Twisters losing more of its audience; but sadly none of those things happened. With low critic reviews, a D+ CinemaScore, and Twisters only losing 34% of its audience. Ultimately the movie that cost $115 million to make is DOA with $8.8 million and placed fourth. It’s certainly one of, if not the, biggest box office bomb of 2024.
Rounding out the Top 5 was Despicable Me 4, which made $8 million.
Next Weekend’s Predictions
The big release next weekend is Alien: Romulus.
Alien: Romulus admittingly is a tough one to pin down in terms of its success.
On one hand, the movie comes from Disney, which as we saw with The First Omen isn’t the best at promoting its R-rated fare and especially horror. Also, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant haven’t exactly left the franchise in the best standing.
On the other hand, Disney seems to be doing a slightly better job of promoting Alien: Romulus. Trailers for it have been playing in front of Deadpool & Wolverine. Which certainly doesn’t hurt.
The movie is tracking for a $35 million to $50 million opening. I do think it’ll likely be very close to the $35 million mark. For context, Alien: Covenant made $36 million on its opening weekend. With all the different factors I would say it’ll make anywhere from $35 million to $40 million and likely place in a close second behind Deadpool & Wolverine. I do think it’s a bit too optimistic for the movie to make more than that. Then again, just like It Ends With Us you could see droves of fans come to see the movie. The chances are low, but not impossible.
As always, we’ll find out next week!
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