After a Saturday of $19.3M, -25% from Friday, Paramount/Skydance/Hasbro’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has taken the weekend with $60.5M. This despite Sony Animation’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse winning Saturday with $21.2M, +26% over Friday, for a second weekend of $55.4M.

With a running cume of $225.5M, the sequel has already beaten the domestic take of the original 2018 Oscar-winning animated pic, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which did $190.2M. Still, at a -54% second weekend hold, that’s fantastic for a Marvel movie, after you consider a bulk of the Disney MCU titles have tumbled -60% to -70% in the post-pandemic era (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the exception of late with a -48% second weekend hold).

Working in Rise of the Beasts’ favor to dominate over Across the Spider-Verse were those $8.8M previews, which were from Wednesday and Thursday showtimes.

What about the air quality in the Northeast? Did that throw a monkey-wrench into business? Possibly. The good news is that no theaters were forced to close. Rise of the Beasts overperformed in the West, South-central and Southeast, but under-indexed in the Northeast (the pic takes place in New York City). Canada drove 6.9% of the pic’s business, and the air quality issues there because of the wildfires may have impacted box office here as well. Major markets that over-indexed include L.A., Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, and San Antonio, while major markets that under-indexed include Boston, Denver, and Minneapolis. Top theaters came from L.A., Phoenix, Atlanta, NY, Baltimore, Atlanta, Fresno, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Austin, and Miami.

Global start for Rise of the Beasts at $170.5M, with $40M coming from China.

“There’s a love for this franchise, that’s why there’s been as many films as there’s been,” said Paramount domestic distribution boss Chris Aronson this AM about the Steven Caple Jr.– directed sequel, “We’ve made a movie that was uber-satisfying for the audience.”

It should also be noted that Bumblebee, though owning the lowest opening in the Transformers franchise at $21.6M, laid the groundwork for introducing a more heartfelt tone to the crash, bang, boom protagonists. It’s part of the reason why we’re seeing a lift here in Rise of the Beasts. It’s important to note that Transformers movies typically open on their own weekend in a summer, and Bumblebee was a Christmas play serving as counter-programming and third fiddle to Warner Bros DC’s Aquaman.

Get this: Box office data firm EntTelligence is calling a tie in regards to admissions between Rise of the Beasts and Across the Spider-Verse with 4.3M apiece. How’s that? The photo-finish ranking vs box office can be attributed to pricing and availability with premium seating: Transformers had an average ticket price of $13.51, and saw 31% premium foot traffic, while Spider-Verse had an average ticket price of $12.49 and premium foot traffic of 9% (this despite Transformers having 399 Imax grossing $6.4M and 700 PLF screens).

EntTelligence also shows:

Both films with a family appeal had similar Saturday foot traffic patterns.

	TRANFORMERS	SPIDER-MAN
Pre 1PM	14%	15%
1PM to 5PM	31%	33%
5PM to 8PM	31%	31%
Post 8PM	24%	21%

There’s a lot to be happy about in the theatrical marketplace: People talk about franchise and superhero fatigue: That didn’t occur this weekend at the box office. A 16-year old cinema franchise based on a near 40-year old toy was able to revive interest in moviegoers and its fanbase after the movie series saw some of its lowest openings in its history.

On the comic book movie side, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is zooming toward a 3x multiple off its $118M opening weekend after we thought summer was off to a slow start, and Spider-Verse is injecting extra adrenaline into the box office, not just with its hold, but in regards to revolutionizing the superhero sub-genre. Yes, true, Warner Bros DC has the long-awaited The Flash next weekend, with its tabloid headline star Ezra Miller (who is not part of the press tour), and that’s only expected to open to $75M. Let’s wait and see where grosses go: the Rotten Tomatoes reviews are at 71% fresh off 117 reviews. Aquaman, the highest-grossing DC movie of all-time at $1.1 billion WW, notched 65% with Rotten Tomatoes critics.

Still, for two movies which are big draws among diverse demos to battle it out is a great thing for the marketplace. And it’s a sign that the summer box office is in full bloom. However, with all films grossing $164M this weekend, -1% from the same frame in pre-pandemic 2019, the question remains how counterprogramming and smaller films can fight their way through. That haggard argument that it’s about product stands tried and true: No one wants to see movies that look like they can be viewed at home on a streaming menu, read The Machine, About My Father (both of which lost north of 1,400 theaters in third weekend), and Kandahar. The arthouse will thrive off of vibrant, edgy, hipster fare like Everything Everywhere All at Once proved after Covid. What about Ticket to Paradise? New Julia Roberts and George Clooney romcoms aren’t available at home; that’s why that worked.

However, wait a second, talk about filling the void at the box office: A24 did it again this weekend with Past Lives. The Celine Song– directed love story starring Greta Lee had one of the best second weekend expansions in recent memory, definitely of the year, jumping up 22 theaters to 26 for a $520K second weekend take (+124%), or $20K theater average, which is bigger than Rise of the Beasts and Spider-Verse‘s theater average this weekend.

The pic, which counts a running total of $867K through ten days, is one of the best-reviewed of the year (97% Rotten Tomatoes) and will continue its rollout on June 23. A24 had another Asian American and Asian arthouse success back in pre-pandemic July 2019 with the Awkwafina drama, The Farewell, which had a similar launch: The pic bowed to $355K at four theaters in weekend one and moved up to 35 theaters in weekend two earning $1.1M. The Farewell finaled its stateside gross at $17.6M. Remember, the current arthouse space is missing goldmines such as the Hollywood Arclight in LA.

 

via Deadline