Box Office Discussion: An A for "F"

 Led by F9, Universal sweeps the top three spots at the box office.

Studios try to avoid releasing their own movies on top of each other.  There are exceptions, of course, but in general, its rare for a major studio to release a film on back-to-back weeks and even rarer for a studio to release two films the same weekend.  Universal decided to dominate the long 4th of July weekend by ignoring that rule and releasing three of the four wide openings of the last two weekends.  The result is a sweep by the studio of the top three slots, the first time a studio has pulled that off since Sony had the top three spots in February 2005 with Hitch, Boogyman, and Are We There Yet?.  

Leading the charge for the second weekend in a row is F9, which drove away with another $23 million on the Friday-Sunday portion of the weekend, for a ten-day total of $116.1 million.  That puts it in second for the year so far, and is easily the fastest to $100 million of the pandemic era, hitting that total on Friday, its 8th day of release (in contrast, A Quiet Place Part II took 15 days to top $100 million).  While it shouldn't have any issue passing the aforementioned Quiet Place in the next couple of weeks, its rather steep drop from last weekend probably puts $200 million out of reach, particularly with Black Widow arriving on Friday going after the exact same audience.

Opening in 2nd is Boss Baby: Family Business, in which Alec Baldwin's now grown former boss baby is returned to infancy by his niece (Amy Sedaris), also a boss baby.  The first film, from 2017 was a big hit, despite decidedly mixed reviews.  The sequel got worse reviews, and ended up with a decent-but-not-great opening of $16 million.  To be fair, that's the best opening this year of a PG-rated movie (beating out Tom & Jerry's $14.1 million in February), though I'm sure Universal was hoping for more.  The good news is that family films have had good legs during the pandemic, but Boss Baby has Space Jam: A New Legacy opening in two weeks, which could have an impact.

In third is The Forever Purge, the fifth entry into the popular action/horror franchise.  Like other sequels, it opened well off the other entries in the franchise, with $12.6 million start, below the previous lowest opening, the $17.4 million opening weekend of The First Purge three years ago.  That film still made it to nearly $70 million, a total that looks out of reach for The Forever Purge.  Like Boss Baby, it two will get direct competition in two weeks with the arrival of Escape Room: Tournament of Champions.

A Quiet Place Part II, which for now is still the highest-grossing film of the year, brought in another $4.1 million for a total of $144.3 million, and seems likely to finish around $160 million.  In fifth, The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard was able to earn another $3 million for a total of $31.4 million.

Cruella, which is going for an older audience than Boss Baby, held up will in 6th, taking in $2.4 million for $76.4 million, and seems to be heading to a final between $80 and $85 million.  Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway fell hard for the first time with direct PG competition, grossing $2.2 million for a total of $34.4 million.  The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It picked up $1.3 million for a gross of $62.6 million.

Opening in 9th is the one wide release of the last two weekends not made by Universal.  Zola, from indie distributor A24, made $1.2 over the weekend, for a total of $2 million since its Wednesday opening.  The comedy-drama apparently did very well at art-house theaters, but fell flat at more mainstream places.

Rounding out the Top 10 is In the Heights, which continues to be in the depths with a gross of $1.2 million for a total of $27.2 million.  However, it still helps make history as this is the first time since March 2020 that all ten films in the Top Ten have grossed at least $1 million for the weekend, another sign that things are very slowly creeping back toward normal.

At least on theater screens, the pandemic forced the MCU to take a two-year hiatus, but that ends this weekend with the arrival of Black Widow, set between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War.  Scarlett Johansson is joined by Florence Pugh, playing her sister, as well as David Harbour and Rachel Weisz.  The film is gunning for F9's two week old record for best opening of the year (and pandemic), and early reports suggests it will take it.  It has an outside shot of becoming the first pandemic movie to open to $100 million, though it will likely have to settle for less.  How big will Black Widow be?  We'll find out next week.