‘Barbie’ Remains at Top as ‘Turtles’, ‘Meg 2’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ Lead Excellent Weekend at the BO!!

As the Hollywood labor stoppage continues, the 2023 box office rally rages on, as domestic box office soars past $6 billion, +22% over the same January-August period a year ago. This weekend for all movies stands at an estimated $178M. This is the fourth time in box office history to have four movies cross $25M; the last time was Thanksgiving weekend 2018.

We always knew this weekend would beat the first frame of August a year ago ($92M), and that’s happening at +94%. But the current Friday-Sunday is also kicking the first weekend of August 2019’s $148.99M by +20%, and that’s when Hobbs & Shaw ruled the chart.

Barbie remains box office queen bee with $53M in weekend 3 after a $17M Friday and $20M Saturday. By EOD, Barbie is roughly $40M shy from passing the half billion mark at the domestic box office, her gross set to stand at $459.4M. A $1 billion running global cume happens today!

That fierce battle for second place we say yesterday between Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Oppenheimer, and The Meg 2: The Trench is settling down.

That second place winner is Meg 2 with $30M, an amazing one-two punch for the weekend by Warner Bros. No one was expecting Meg 2 to rank second place. Here’s the takeaway with Meg 2 this weekend: For all those studios clutching their pearls and worried about stars not doing press, and looking to dynamite the rest of the 2023 calendar. Meg 2‘s opening was achieved off a screening program campaign, with in theater and online trailers and TV spots. I hear that Jason Statham and the cast didn’t do that much press here in the U.S. Such is the plus of opening a sequel off the gas of its established IP. The first Meg‘s campy comedic marketing campaign five years ago already did the heavy lifting in establishing the brand. The sequel’s trailers just needed to run with it.

Beamed Jeff Goldstein, Domestic Distribution President of Warner Bros, “This is an extraordinary time for Barbie fans as the blowout parties continue. Meg 2 delivered the one-two punch and scared audiences everywhere.”

Uni’s Oppenheimer is third with $28.7M. Since opening, per EntTelligene, Barbenheimer, has pulled in 55.5M moviegoers, broken out that’s 39M for Barbie and another 16.5M for Oppenheimer.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles after a great Saturday of $10.3M, +11% over Friday’s $9.3M, is coming in at $28M over 3-days and $43M, which is still great for this $70M production.

Wow, that was easy, everyone played nice. Typically, when there’s a tie in an upper ranking, especially No. 1, it’s a game of chicken among the majors on Sunday morning when calling it. More specifically, there’s a delay in reporting with snarking all around. One of the more notorious fights over first in recent memory was the weekend of Sept. 29-Oct. 1, 2017 when the opening of Tom Cruise’s American Made, the fourth weekend of It and the second weekend of Kingsman: The Golden Circle were all ranking in the high $16M range. Kingsman won with $16.935M.

Turtles is a huge win for the Brian Robbins Paramount administration particularly as he builds out and revives franchises.

Said Chris Aronson, Paramount’s Domestic Distribution Boss this AM, “We’re over the moon with this opening. We exceeded pre-release expectations with this movie which has been a labor of love for a long time.”

The decision to revive Turtles happened back in 2018 when Robbins was at Nickelodeon with Ramsey Naito, current President, Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation, and they sparked to the idea of Seth Rogen’s involvement, as well as filmmaker Jeff Rowe –both lifelong fans–who truly wanted to lean into the ‘teenage’ part of the IP. Paramount, like all their movies this year, has gotten behind promoting the animated pic 200%, having Rogen show off extended footage at CinemaCon, and a work-in-progress cut at Annecy back in June. Props to Paramount: They were the only studio who realized that there would be a full-house crowd down at San Diego Comic-Con; fans unfazed by the strikes. So they took Turtles down to Hall H and showed off more footage to fans with Rowe in tow as well as TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman — the latter who just stoked the crowd. Why skip an opportunity? Very smart on the Melrose Lot for being fearless and creative sans stars in their promotion. Rival studios, take note.

The second animated take of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has a Comscore/Screen Engine PostTrak audience score of 88% positive and a 70% recommend, with kids under 12 giving it 94%, and a 69% must-see. That’s enough ooze to keep chugging into the fall. That’s on top of the pic’s already “A” CinemaScore. Men showing up at 60% to women’s 40%, with 56% of the crowd between 18-34. The biggest demo is 18-24 at 34%. Diversity demos are 33% Caucasian, a great 33% Latino and Hispanic, 17% Black, and 16% Asian/other. The South Central and the West are the most robust here for the Nickelodeon/Point Grey production. Oppenheimer still has Imax, but the Turtles have PLFs, which are driving 16% of ticket sales and another 11% from 3D. Adam Aron’s AMC Burbank is the top-grossing movie theater in the nation at $103K-plus so far. Cowabunga.

TMNT:MM saw Canada delivering 5% of the gross with major markets that over-indexed being LA, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Austin while the only major markets that under-indexed were Seattle and Toronto. Top theaters came from LA, NY, Phoenix, Orlando, Dallas, Pharr TX, El Paso, Nashville, San Antonio, and Houston.

Social media analytics corp RelishMix says that Turtles’ social media universe is 309.8M across Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok combined. Ahead of release, RelishMix said those stats were under family animated averages. But clearly there’s an appetite here for the movie, as it’s greatly over-performing.

PostTrak audiences gave Meg 2 72% in the top two boxes, with a 55% recommend, and a B- to the first chapter’s B+. South Central and South are the biggest-grossing regions. Note, there’s a lot of walk-up business here, like there was on the first movie, from the Latino and Hispanic moviegoers who are showing up at 25% to Caucasian 41%, Black 15%, and Asian American at 13%. Warners does have some PLFs for the shark that are shared with the Turtles, accounting for 22.5% of the overall gross with another 18% coming from 3D screens. The Regal Fresno Riverpark is leading the pack with $39K in gross (including early shows) so far.

RelishMix counts a social media universe for the sequel of 350.8M, 14% above genre averages next to action-adventure sci-fi titles, with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom on the high end at 611.3M SMU. “Chatter flows positive on The Meg 2, which makes new waves as the audacious, over-the-top shark sequel being hailed as a high-octane escape into ‘stupid-crazy-fun entertainment’ with endless positive snarky threads. The return of Jason Statham draws a splash as fans gush, ‘Looks amazing, especially with Jason Statham in this epic shark movie.’” reports RelishMix.

Jason Statham, who counts 111M fans on social media, got this modest plug in for the film on Instagram before the SAG-AFTRA strikes began: