Fast X races to the top of the chart, but can't beat the opening of F9.
Three weeks into the summer movie season, which is looking to be the most loaded one since before the pandemic, it's hard not to notice something a bit concerning--openings appear to be down. So far, of the three sequels that have launched the summer season, all of them opened down from their immediate predecessors. With Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, terrific legs seem to be making up a lot of the difference, and I don't think anyone is too torn up about Book Club: The Next Chapter, a relatively low-budgeted follow-up to a sleeper hit from five years ago that not too many people remember. But one might have expected Fast X to improve on the performance of F9 from two years ago, given that that film was released amid a lot of uncertainty about whether it was even safe to go out to the movies. One would have expected wrong.
Fast X, the tenth (11th, if you count Hobbs & Shaw) and perhaps penultimate entry in the very long running franchise, opened to $67 million. That the films aren't reaching the absurd heights like the nearly $150 million bow of Furious 7 back in 2015 isn't a huge surprise--franchise fatigue can definitely set in. But it came in $3 million below F9, which is not the direction grosses should be going--especially when the budget is an eye-popping $340 million, which is nearly ten times the budget of the first film 22 years ago. International grosses should be strong, but domestically, this probably needs much better legs than F9 did, or 2025's Fast X Part 2 will really serve as the franchise's swan song.
Holding up nicely in second is the aforementioned Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, which brought home a solid $32.4 million. The sci-fi action comedy has now grosses $267 million and should be over $300 million in the next week or so. With schools beginning to get out for summer, that could provide a nice spark for improved weekday business as well.
The end of school might also help The Super Mario Bros. Movie, even though it is getting close to Game Over. The year's highest-grossing film brought in another $9.6 million, which runs its flagpole to $549.1 million. Improved weekday grosses might be able to get it the remaining $51 million standing between it and a $600 million final.
It now seems likely that Book Club: The Next Chapter's meager grosses last weekend might actually have been augmented by Mother's Day, as the comedy collapsed in its second weekend, to $3 million. It has a ten-day total of $13.1 million. Counterprogramming against blockbusters can be effective, but studios should probably make sure there is actually an audience for the counterprogramming first.
Taking spots 5-7 are long-running holdovers Evil Dead Rise, John Wick, Chapter 4, and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. Dead took in $2.4 million to bring its total to $64.2 million. Wick made $1.3 million for a total of $185.3 million. Margaret earned $1.3 million for a total of $18.7 million.
Rounding out the Top 10 are three films that failed to earn a million over the weekend. Flop Hypnotic has a ten-day total of $4.1 million. Romcom Love Again has earned $5.9 million, and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is up to $92.9 million.
This week's big opening, and most likely new #1 is The Little Mermaid, the latest of Disney live-action (and live-actionish) reimaginings of one of its classic animated titles and the first to get a full-scale theatrical release since The Lion King before the pandemic. Newcomer Halle Bailey, best known for a supporting part on Grown-ish, is Ariel, opposite Melissa McCarthy as Ursula and Javier Bardem as King Triton. Hitting the $191.8 million Lion King debuted with might be out of range, but it should do as much business as Aladdin, which opened to $91.5 million. Weirdly opening against each other are two comedies starring largely unknown comedians about their rocky relationships with their dads, played by legends. The more sedate-looking About My Father has Sebastian Maniscalco introducing his crude dad Robert De Niro to his more refined fiancé's parents, while the wild-looking The Machine has Bert Kreischer and his dad Mark Hamill get kidnapped to Russia. Also opening is Kandahar, which stars Gerard Butler as a CIA agent in Afghanistan, and has a plot that sounds pretty similar to last month's flop Guy Ritchie's The Covenant. Can Mermaid swim past $100 million over the long weekend? Can any of the other three make it over $10 million? Can they combined make it over $10 million? We'll find out next week.
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