Weekend Box Office: Weapons and Jaws devour the competition
Another Labor Day weekend is in the books, and as usual, it was a massacre for new releases. This release corridor has long been regarded as a dumping ground for new titles, but this year, studios seemed to be trying something a little different. Two relatively star-studded movies hit theaters: Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing and The Roses. Caught Stealing was very well reviewed (including by us), although most critics found The Roses to be a mediocre remake of the classic Danny DeVito film The War of the Roses. Audiences were lukewarm on both, giving Caught Stealing a B, while The Roses got a B+. Neither made much of a dent at the box office.
Indeed, Weapons, now that Kpop Demon Hunters is no longer competing with it, was able to retake the top spot with $10.2 million for a $132 million domestic haul (pretty close to what I predicted earlier this week). That’s a terrific number for an R-rated studio horror film, propelling director Zach Cregger to superstar status.
The movie in second place was a surprise: the fiftieth-anniversary reissue of Jaws was a monster hit, grossing $8.1 million. It easily beat Caught Stealing, which was widely predicted to open in the $10 million range but only managed $7.8 million. One wonders what Sony was thinking opening the film on Labor Day, as it almost seems like this was a movie they produced mainly to feed their Netflix pipeline, given their exclusive deal with the streamer (that’s how Kpop Demon Hunters, also produced by Sony, became a Netflix phenomenon). Freakier Friday landed in fourth place with $6.5 million and an $80 million total. This sequel seems to have come too late, underperforming at the box office and adding to Disney’s summer of woe. The next two movies on the list were distributed by Disney as well, with The Roses from Searchlight earning only $6.35 million. Expect it to hit Hulu within weeks. Fantastic Four: First Steps began wrapping up its underwhelming run with $4.8 million and a $264 million domestic total.
Universal’s The Bad Guys 2 showed a bit of staying power in seventh place, with $4.74 million and a $73 million domestic total. Superman added another $2.85 million to its coffers for a $351 million domestic total. Bob Odenkirk’s kick-ass Nobody 2 earned $1.83 million for a domestic total of just over $20 million, a disappointing result for this well-received sequel. Finally, The Naked Gun, which drops on digital Tuesday, made $1.8 million, pushing its domestic total over the $50 million mark.
One of the biggest stories of the weekend is what didn’t make the top 10. Cineverse laid an egg with Legendary’s expensive remake of The Toxic Avenger. It made a horrifying $1.7 million—with a per-screen average of only $879. That’s a terrible result for a movie that many fans of the original seem to be loving. What a shame.
Next weekend should liven up the box office a bit, with The Conjuring: Last Rites opening in theaters. Will it reinvigorate the box office? Let us know in the comments!
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