The summer's last big film, Bullet Train, has what may be the last relatively big opening until October.
The summer movie season traditionally starts to wind down around mid-August, with more minor releases dominating the last weekend or two of the month, as well as the first couple of weekends of September. A year ago, it looked like that dynamic might be changing with the successful release of Candyman at the end of August, followed by the blockbuster Labor Day release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. This year however, the summer movie season more or less comes to an abrupt halt right now, as nothing on the release schedule for the next two months looks to have anywhere near the firepower of even Paw Patrol: The Movie. This isn't to say that there won't be sleeper hits over the next couple of months (if I had to guess, I'd see the Idris Elba thriller Beast, the intriguing-looking thriller Don't Worry Darling, and the raunchy gay romcom Bros as the most likely to break out), but thanks to backups at various effects houses, nothing that in this day and age that can guarantee a big opening will be arriving until pumpkin spice season is well underway.
Into this uncertain environment roars Bullet Train, the last offering for a while that features a big star (Brad Pitt) and the trappings of a summer hit. The action-comedy, which has Pitt's beleaguered assassin discovering that what was supposed to be a simple job on board the titular Japanese mode of transportation is anything but, opened as expected to $30 million. That's almost exactly what Pitt's last film, The Lost City, in which he had an extended cameo (that film's star, Sandra Bullock, returns the favor in Bullet Train) opened to back in late March. City was able to overcome a crowded April to make $105 million, which seems like a good bet for the Bullet Train final as well. Train will have less competition (there's no Sonic the Hedgehog 2 waiting in weekend #3), but it also has an R-rating. Word-of-mouth will determine this film's fate.
Last week's champ, the animated DC League of Super-Pets, should probably consider itself lucky it even got released. Still, no one is likely to be happy with a 52% second weekend drop and a gross of $11.1 million. Its 10-day total of $45 million is almost exactly where The Bad Guys was after its second week, even though that film had a much better hold, thanks to the fact that Pets is putting up much better weekday numbers (Guys came out when school was still in session). Pets should be able to keep doing so for another week or two, but with much of the film's target audience heading back to class before the end of the month, Pets really needs to stabilize its grosses if it has any hope to hit $100 million.
In third, Nope continues to fade fairly fast, as it picks up $8.5 million. With a gross of $98 million, it will fall well short of the $175 finals of both Get Out and Us. Still, it has now passed The Black Phone to become the year's highest-grossing R-rated movie, and will hit $100 million well before next weekend. Unless Bullet Train has much better legs than I'm expecting, Nope seems likely to keep that title for quite some time.
Thor: Love & Thunder took in $7.7 million, bringing its total to $316.2 million, enough to surpass Thor: Ragnarok to become the highest grosser in this franchise-within-a-franchise. Minions: The Rise of Gru came up with $7.1 million, bringing its total to $334.6 million, or just below the first Minions in this other franchise-within-a-franchise.
Finally falling out of the Top 5 after 10 weeks, Top Gun: Maverick earned another $7 million for a total of $662.5 million. That's enough to sink Titanic for 7th of all time (domestic). It's $16 million or so away from Avengers: Infinity War, and it should pass that one by the end of August. Where the Crawdads Sing sang up another $5.7 million, for $64.7 million. It could finish north of $80 million.
Opening in 8th, Easter Sunday, the new family comedy starring comedian Jo Koy. This was lightly promoted, and its a movie called Easter Sunday that's opening in August, so its not hugely surprising it didn't do that well. Still, there's some room for decent legs here, so we'll see how it holds up.
Rounding out the Top 10, Elvis came up with $3.9 million for a total of $136.5 million, and The Black Phone rang up $1.5 million for a total of $85.9 million. Outside the Top 10, Vengeance had a ten-day total of $3.3 million.
While several new movies open this weekend, none of them are expected to challenge Bullet Train for the top spot. The widest new opening is Bodies Bodies Bodies, a horror comedy about a group of 20-somethings (including Pete Davidson and Maria Bakalova) whose game of murder takes an actual deadly turn. It did well in limited release last weekend, but we'll see how it does when it goes wide. Also possibly making an impact on the chart is Mack and Rita, a variation on Big in which a 30-something woman wakes up in the body of 70-year-old Diane Keaton, Fall, a thriller in which two daredevil women find themselves trapped thousands of feet in the air after the ladder of the abandoned old radio tower they climbed breaks off, and Laal Singh Chaddah, a Bollywood remake of Forrest Gump. Will any of them be able to take a train to the top of the charts? Or will Bullet, as expected, shoot them all down? We'll find out next week.
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