On a slow Super Bowl weekend, Magic Mike's Last Dance boogies its way to the top.
It's now been a full decade since Warm Bodies became the last film to have a truly successful Super Bowl weekend launch. Since then, Hollywood has mostly used the weekend to throw out low-budget action, low-budget horror, quirky films that the studio doesn't know what to do with, and out-and-out dumps. That worked fine when the Super Bowl was always played on the first Sunday in February, allowing the following weekend, the weekend before/of Valentine's, to serve as the launching pad for the spring movie season. But, with the NFL adding a 17th game and pushing the post-season back a week, the Super Bowl now lands on the weekend before/of Valentine's Day. Last year, the studios decided to go ahead and release three big titles (Death on the Nile, Marry Me, Blacklight), only to see all three underperform. Hollywood got the message, and this year, the only new titles this weekend were a 25th anniversary re-release and a movie originally destined for streaming.
Why WB decided that Magic Mike's Last Dance should be an HBO Max exclusive, I don't know, what with the popularity of the first two movies, the return to the director's chair of Steven Soderbergh, and last year's comeback of Channing Tatum. But the new regime at WB, amid their otherwise awful decisions, decided that theatrical was still important, so, like last month's House Party, this got rerouted to multiplexes. And, unlike House Party, which sank without a trace, this one turned out to be a hit. Never underestimate the appeal of a shirtless, gyrating Channing Tatum, as his character (the only one returning from either of the previous films), meets Salma Hayek and goes to London. It wasn't a huge launch, as it only opened in 1,500 theaters, but it was enough to win the weekend with $8.3 million. This weekend, it expands to over 3,000 theaters, befitting the #1 movie in America.
While its not uncommon for actors to have two films simultaneously place high on the box office charts, it's much rarer for directors, as even the most prolific ones rarely get to move on to their next project in earnest until their previous one is out in theaters. James Cameron has managed to pull off that feat, albeit with one film that's a quarter-century old. In second is his long-running Christmas 2022 hit Avatar: The Way of the Water, which pulled in $7.2 million for a total gross of $647.3 million. By the end of this coming weekend, it should pass Jurassic World for #9 on the all-time domestic list. It might have a bit of trouble catching #8, though, as it is also posed to move up the list.
That's because Titanic, Cameron's 1997 mega-blockbuster, has sailed back into theaters a couple months after its 25th anniversary. And despite the fact there's plenty of ways to watch the tragic love story of Jack and Rose amid the big ship going down at home, there's something about seeing the spectacle on the big screen (in 3D, no less) that continues to draw in moviegoers. It's 2012 re-release made nearly $60 million, and while this one won't come close to that number, it could put the total lifetime domestic gross of the film over $700 million. It launched to $6.7 million, to bring its all-time gross to $669 million.
Football comedy 80 for Brady seems poised to have a decent, leggy run, but asking people to skip the big game to watch four old women try to go to the big game was probably a big ask. That's why it fell to fourth this weekend, with a gross of $5.8 million. It's ten-day total is $24.8 million. This one looks to be heading for around $40 million or so before it hits the showers.
The other long-running Christmas 2002 title, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, does appear to be running out of steam, as it takes in $5.8 million for a total of $158.6 million. It should pass Sing 2 by next weekend to become the second-highest-grossing animated title of the pandemic era.
After bad word-of-mouth, its not surprising that last week's champ, Knock at the Cabin, fell to 6th, though that probably is also because the entire Top 6 is fairly huddled close together. After all, Knock, with its $5.4 million weekend, is less than $3 million behind Magic Mike. The thriller's ten-day total stands at $23.4 million.
The moderate Tom Hanks hit, A Man Called Otto, continues to amble along, taking in $2.6 million for a total of $57.4 million. The thriller Missing also took in $2.6 million for a total of $26.6 million.
M3GAN continues to crawl toward $100 million, scaring up $2.4 million for a total of $91 million. A sequel to Plane, albeit not with pricy star Gerald Butler, was announced this week, as the thriller rounded out the Top 10, with $1.2 million, as it comes in for a landing at $30.8 million.
Outside the Top 10, little-promoted animated title The Amazing Maurice brought its ten-day total to $2.6 million, as it slips off to streaming services and Redbox locations.
The weekend after the Super Bowl often sees the launch of a blockbuster, and this year is no exception, as the latest MCU entry, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, hits theaters. This one sees most of the film's main cast (Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas) shrunk down to the Quantum Realm, where they encounter the MCU's new Big Bad, Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), making his film debut after popping up in the last episode of Loki a year and a half ago. It also features a cameo from a beloved, if rather problematic, comedy icon. That Ant-Man will be opening at #1 is a foregone conclusion. The only question is if the lousy reviews and the series's relative unpopularity (Ant-Man has always been, box-office-wise, one of the lesser-grossing of the various franchises in the MCU) will hold the opening down. Also arriving is Marlowe, starring Liam Neeson as Phillip Chandler's legendary detective. This one has a bit more pedigree than most of Neeson's Old Man of Action movies (co-stars Diane Kruger and Jessica Lange, direction by Neil Jordan), but it is also getting negative reviews, suggesting a weak start for this one. Will Ant-Man be able to grow its grosses to a 9-figure opening? We'll find out next week.
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