Bullet Train wins a slow weekend pretty much by default.
For weeks, the industry looked nervously at mid-August, noticing that after Bullet Train at the beginning of the month, the new releases began to look awfully meager, with hardly a blockbuster in sight for weeks. Unfortunately, at least for the first, blockbuster-less weekend, those forecasts came true as the overall box office slumped to its lowest level since February.
Bullet Train won in its second weekend, falling 55% to $13.4 million. The action comedy turns in a ten-day total of $54.5 million. That's almost exactly where The Lost City, another action comedy starring Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock, was after its second week. That's good news for Train's chances of chugging across the $100 million mark, as City finished with $105.3 million. But City also, after the first weekend, started having drops of less than 40%. If Train isn't able to stabilize, it could find itself looking up at the century mark. Luckily, the lack of major blockbusters makes it likely that Train will have better legs than a film of this type normally would have at this time of year.
After falling out of the Top 5 last weekend, Top Gun: Maverick flies all the way back to second, with an actual increase over last weekend. The massive blockbuster, currently sitting at #7 on the all-time domestic list, made $7.1 million in its 12th weekend, the ninth best 12th weekend of all time (and some of the movies higher on the list had been in limited release at the beginning of their runs). The film now stands at $673.7 million. The film will finally be available for digital purchase in the next few days, but not rental for a few more weeks, which should help keep it flying toward $700 million.
In third, DC League of Super-Pets had somewhat super hold, taking in $7 million, for a total of $58.2 million. It continues to track pretty closely with April's The Bad Guys, as Guys had better weekends and Pets has better weekdays. As more and more kids start school over the next couple of weeks, those weekday grosses are going to dry up, though, so Pets better start pulling more weight on weekends if it hopes to hit $100 million.
Thor: Love and Thunder took in $5.4 million for fourth, with its total standing at $325.5 million. Nope passed $100 million during the course of last week, the twelfth film of the year to do so, and took in $5.4 million over the weekend to arrive at $107.6 million.
Also before the weekend, Minions: The Rise of Gru passed the first Minions, and took in $5 million over the weekend for a gross of $343.8 million. It has an outside chance of earning the additional $25 million necessary to pass Despicable Me 2 to become the overall franchise's highest grosser. Where the Crawdads Sing took in $4 million to bring its total to $72.2 million. It looks to finish north of $80 million.
In 8th, the first of the weekend's newcomers was Bodies Bodies Bodies. The horror comedy was only able to dig up $3.3 million. As the film had opened in limited release last weekend, its ten-day total stands at $3.6 million, and these bodies will be lucky to top $10 million.
With Bullet Train and Nope unlikely to catch up, Elvis looks to be the surprise winner of the summer's biggest non-franchise film. The biopic took in $2.6 million to bring its total to $141.3 million. Uncharted, currently the year's highest-grossing non-franchise player, is within striking distance.
Opening in tenth is the thriller Fall, which could only climb to $2.5 million.
In one very positive sign, though, a whopping 15 movies finished above $1 million for the weekend, a turnaround from earlier this summer when a film made the Top 10 with just a $0.2 million gross. In 11th is Easter Sunday, with $2.4 million and a ten-day gross of $10 million. Opening in 12th is the Indian film Laal Singh Chaddha, a remake of, of all thing, Forrest Gump. The dramady took in $1.5 million over the weekend and $1.8 million since its opening last Wednesday. The 40th anniversary IMAX re-release of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial had plenty of people phoning home after the movie to tell others to come. It took in $1.1 million. The new comedy Mack & Rita could only manage $1 million and 14th despite both the widest of the new releases and starring Diane Keaton. Finally, The Black Phone is wrapping up a very successful run, taking in $1 million to bring its gross to $87.7 million.
This weekend sees two wide releases, both of which has a strong shot of knocking off Bullet Train. Beast stars Idris Elba, whose trip to the African Savanna turns into a fight for survival when a rogue lion starts stalking them. This sounds a bit like Crawl, the thriller about a father and daughter being menaced by gators in their flooded house, that was a sleeper hit in 2019. Meanwhile, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero seeks to follow in the footsteps of the last Dragon Ball movie to hit American theaters, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which took in a surprising $30 million back in 2019. With Demon Slayer The Movie: Mugen Train and Jujitsu Kaisen 0 being legitimate hits at the US box office in the last couple of years, Super Hero could continue to show the strength of anime in North America. Will Dragon Ball have a super opening? Will Beast prove to be a box office beauty? Or will Bullet Train track its way back to #1? We'll find out next week.
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