Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 has one of the best holds ever for the second weekend of an MCU sequel, while Book Club gets returned to the library.
MCU movies tend to open well and drop fast. This has been especially true of the pandemic era. Since Black Widow returned the franchise to the big screen during the summer of 2021, only one title, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, has avoided a second weekend drop of 60%, and it fell 54%. Even Spider-Man: No Way Home, which dominated the box office from before Christmas 2021 all the way until February 2022, had a second weekend drop of 68%. The franchise is front-loaded, and falls off quickly. Until now.
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 had an OK-at-best opening, but fantastic word of mouth, lack of serious new competition, and that only OK opening led to the title having by far the best hold of any MCU pandemic release, and one of the best of the entire franchise. Guardians fell only 48% from its opening, taking in $62 million, for a ten-day total of $214.7 million. It's already exceeded the gross of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which only made about $12 million less on its first weekend, but suffered a 70% drop and quick annialation afterward. Indeed, that puts Guardians already at #2 for 2023, and while it will almost certainly continue to stare up at Super Mario Bros., it could end up coming surprisngly close to the video game adaption when all is said and done. Indeed, this is such an impressive hold that Guardians's second weekend is in the neighborhood of the second weekend grosses of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, despite those opening well north of Volume 3. Indeed, Volume 3 made more its second weekend than Doctor Strange in the Muliverse of Madness, despite that title opening nearly $70 millin higher. With nearly every upcoming weekend boasting at least one massive blockbuster, Guardians might not be able to hold onto that #2 spot for long, but it could end up, surprisingly enough, as one of the leggier titles of the summer.
Speaking of leggy titles, The Super Mario Bros. Movie had its own very small drop this weekend, scoring another $12.6 million for a total of $535.6 million. At this point, beating Incredibles II is out of the question, and with The Little Mermaid swimming up to take the family audiences next weekend, even getting to $600 million is now rather doubtful. Of course, all this ignores the fact that Mario has been a massive successs, far bigger than Universal, Illumination, or Nintendo dreamed. Now that the new Zelda game has been successfully launched, don't be surprised if we see the announcement of a Zelda movie before too much longer.
Five years ago, against the testerone-driven spectacles of Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2, and Solo: A Star Wars Story, Book Club captured the female demographic and grossed a surprising $68.6 million. The sequel, called somewhat predictably Book Club: The Next Chapter, reunited the origianl quartet of Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Mary Steenburgen, and Candice Bergan, and even sent them to Italy. Alas, the Mother's Day audience decided to stay home this time, as Chapter could only bring in $6.7 million, or only about half of what the first film launched to. Unless word of mouth saves this one the way it seems to be saving Guardians 3, Book Club could be disbanded very shortly.
In fourth, Evil Dead Rise was able to summon another $3.7 million, to bring the horror-comedy's take to $60.2 million. In fifth, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret was blessed with another $2.5 million, for a total of $16.5 million.
There are some movies that get a wide theaterical release when a direct-to-streaming release might have been a better idea. This week's example of that is Hypnotic, a thriller starring Ben Affleck as a detective who has trouble figuring out reality from fantasy when he investiages a bank robbery committed by soemone who apperently can control minds. This one was abandoned when its original production company went bankrupt, only to be rescused and released by tiny Ketchup Entertainment, which didn't really have money for an ad campaign. Still, the film managed to earn $2.4 million, well short of what the much better promoted Air made back in early April, but still something of an impresesive start considering the circumstances. This one will likely earn only about $5 million, though.
In 7th, John Wick, Chapter 4 is heading out the door, leaving a trail of bodies behind it, but it did pick up another $2.1 million, bringing its total to $183.1 million.
Last week's flop romcom Love Again got rejected by moviegoers again, though its 39% fall is actually decent for a second weekend. Still, the comedy starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Sam Heughan could only pull in $1.5 million for a ten-day total of $4.9 million. Still, thanks to Celine Dion's five new songs, this could find itself on the Oscar shortlist come the end of the year.
Rounding out the top ten with grosses under a million, the aforemetioned Air is now up to $51.7 million and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is at $92.2 million. Both titles are now streaming on Amazon Prime and Paramount Plus, respectively.
Twenty-two years ago, a relatively low-budget street racing movie that borrowed a bunch of its plot from Point Break became one of that summer's sleeper hits. I'm pretty sure no one involved dreamed the Fast and the Furious series would be entering its third decade and have produced ten movies (11, if you count Hobbs & Shaw). Fast X arrives this weekend, with Jason Momoa as this go-around's villain and two other Oscar winners join the cast, though I'm not sure if their presences is supposed to be a surprise or not. The films, which are finally supposed to be beginning to wrap up, is not quite the draw they were in the mid-teens, but this should still be an easy #1 opening. Can it beat out the opening two years ago of F9? We'll find out next week.
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