New Line/Warner Bros is calling the third weekend of The Nun 2 at $8.4M and Lionsgate says Millennium Media’s Expendables 4 is at $8.3M, which by the way, is the lowest ever for the franchise.
While some will argue that’s a tie, it ain’t, because rival studios have a farther gap between the two movies, showing that the Conjuring sequel is the winner. Once again, what genre do most moviegoers care about, even during a slow time at the box office? Horror. Global for Michael Chaves’ Nun 2 at $204M could overtake Annabelle Comes Home‘s worldwide, which did $231.2M.
In terms of the severity of how bad the loss is here on Expendables 4, we have to see the global grosses, which haven’t been disclosed yet. In China, the reported $100M Expendables 4 is up to $20.8M. Lionsgate took UK and U.S. on the Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham movie for around $20M, with $20M in marketing. Again, when Lionsgate sees a stinker on paper, they’re not going to promote and scream a movie from the cliffs like John Wick or Hunger Games. Stallone’s previous movie, Samaritan, at MGM skipped a theatrical release back in late August 2022 for a launch on Prime Video. As far as exhibition is concerned, splitting $8M in box office is better for them than seeing Stallone’s latest dud on a service. Given the intricate nature of these foreign sales deals, no one is really looking to replicate the pandemic model, which saw the U.S. going streaming on a title and the rest of the world theatrical (ala Gerard Butler’s Greenland). It’s often built in these deals that U.S. must go theatrical like the rest of the world.
Comscore is reporting the overall box office weekend at $51.7M, which is the lowest to date for 2023, under Super Bowl weekend’s $52.6M for all titles. This weekend’s B.O. is also off -18% from a year ago, when Don’t Worry Darling led the pack with $19.3M.
Is Expendables 4 the worst wide opening for Stallone? Why, no, that would belong to 2012’s Bullet to the Head, which debuted to $4.5M.
Is the latest fourthquel the lowest for Statham? No, as that opening belongs to the earlier Lionsgate/Miramax title from this year, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, which debuted to $3.1M on 2,168 theaters and ended its run at $6.4M (By the way, from an action fan pov, an underappreciated little gem starring Aubrey Plaza. The movie makes a long plane ride go a lot faster).
Given the fandom of this duo, audiences will keep forgiving them, as they have at the box office. However, when Stallone and Statham fans see a rerun in their canons, they’ll gladly sit it out at cinemas and watch from their couches.
At least stateside, it’s time to retire Expendables and think up a new franchise, Signor Stallone.
NEON’s genre release of It Lives Inside came in at $2.63M. That’s just a tad above where NEON opened Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, which did $2.5M, and that was coming off of a Sundance premiere. Infinity Pool ended its run at $5M stateside.
A24’s rerelease of the Talking Heads concert film, Stop Making Sense, saw $800,6K from 264 Imax runs, with a running total of $1.4M that included the large format exhibitor’s live band reunion event out of TIFF two weeks ago. A24 says that over 60% of the audience who showed up for the movie hadn’t been born when the original Jonathan Demme-directed title was released in 1984. Audiences are reportedly dancing in the aisles for this –which we experienced first-hand at the TIFF event– with exits scoring a perfect 100. The film expands nationwide next weekend. Imax says the global on Stop Making Sense is at $1.6M, which includes another $192K from 35 offshore screens. The lifetime domestic on Stop Making Sense is around $6.5M.
Studio reported estimates:
1) The Nun 2 (NL) 3,536 theaters (-207), Fri $2.4M (-45%) Sat $3.75M Sun $2.25M 3-day $8.4M (-42%) Total $69.2M/Wk 3
2.) Expendables 4 (LG/Mill) 3518 theaters, Fri $3.2M Sat $3M Sun $2M 3-day $8.3M/Wk 1
3.) A Haunting in Venice (Dis) 3,305 Fri $1.7M (-69%) Sat $2.77M Sun $1.78M 3-day $6.3M (-56%)/Total $25.3M/Wk 2
4.) Equalizer 3 (Sony) 3,270 (-258) theaters Fri $1.35M (-36%) Sat $2.1M Sun $1.2M 3-day $4.72M (-35%), Total: $81.2M /Wk 4
5.) Barbie (WB) 2,634 (-378) theaters, Fri $800K Sat $1.5M Sun $900K 3-day $3.2M (-16%) Total $630.45M/Wk 10 Imax nor Warner Bros. broke out the Imax gross portion, however, for a movie in its 10th weekend to dip 16% is pretty remarkable, evident of some juice from large format.
6.) My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (Uni) 3,078 (-600) theaters Fri $820K (-41%) Sat $1.3M Sun $860K 3-day $3M (-37%) Total $23.8M/Wk 3
7.) It Lives Inside (NEON) 2,010 theaters, Fri $1M Sat $930K Sun $650K 3-day $2.6M/Wk 1
8.) Dumb Money (Sony) 616 (+608) theaters, Fri $985K (+967%) Sat $873K Sun $642K 3-day $2.5M (+999%), Total $2.8M/Wk 2
9.) Blue Beetle (WB) 1,953 (-433) theaters, Fri $400K (-31%) Sat $830K Sun $580K 3-day $1.81M (-28%)/Total $69.8M/Wk 6
10.) Oppenheimer (Uni) 1,459 locations, Fri $380K Sat $760K Sun $490K 3-day $1.63M (-22%), Total $321.2M/Wk 10
11.) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…(Par) 1,751 (-315) theaters Fri $335K (-24%) Sat $780K Sun $510K 3-day $1.625M (-20%) Total $116.2M/Wk 8