The second weekend of September for all movies came close to the $100M mark for the first time since pre-Covid 2019 thanks to Warner Bros’ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice rally at the box office, coming in at $51.6M weekend (-56%) after a second Friday of $14.4M and Saturday of $22.5M. The running stateside total is $188M with global at $264.3M.

Blumhouse/Universal’s Speak No Evil came in a little lower than what we were seeing yesterday with $11.5M to $12.3M, but above its $10M projection. This movie in its essence feels arthouse with its UK countryside setting and dialogue-driven quiet thriller narrative. For a movie like this, based on the 2022 Danish horror sensation Gæsterne, that’s pretty impressive. CinemaScore is a B+, which is very high for a genre movie. Mostly female here for the R-rated movie at 51%, and 38% of the audience over 35. Diversity demos are 37% Caucasian, a very solid 31% Latino and Hispanic, 16% Black and 10% Asian American. Best markets for the James McAvoy movie are South Central and West with the AMC Burbank the title’s top grossing venue at around $30K so far.

Filing in 4th place, and a commendable start for a wide release documentary is SDG Releasing/Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh documentary, Am I Racist? with $4.75M for the weekend at 1,517 sites after a $1.96M Friday and A Cinemascore and 5 stars on PostTrak. That’s the third highest opening for a wide release documentary per Comscore in the last decade behind Angel Studios’ After Death ($5M) and Disney’s 2017 Born in China ($4.79M) Diversity turnout was 64% Caucasian, 19% Latino and Hispanic, 6% Black and 4% Asian American. Mostly men at 56% with 59% of the audience being over 35 and the largest demo being 25-34 at 28%.

In terms of the political background of those buying tickets, PostTrak showed that 52% indentified as conservative and 43% as Republican, 8% politically moderate and 3% registered Democrats. The pic earned an A+ with men under 18 and women under 25. Top markets for the right-wing docu were Los Angeles, NYC, Nashville (Regal Green Hills multiplex there the best in the nation for the pic at $30K so far), Dallas-Ft. Worth and Salt Lake City. However, the top grossing areas were the South, Midwest and Mountain regions. Fifty-nine percent of those in PostTrak exits said they went to the docu because of its subject, which follows Walsh investigating diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, while 39% went because they’re fans of the right-wing commentator. “Like Tucker Carlson, he’s a draw for the right,” commended one rival marketing exec not associated with the film, on how Daily Wire hit the pic’s target audience head-on.

Walsh has used the presidential election to market the movie, crashing the Democratic National Convention in his Am I Racist? character and wearing a “White Guys for Kamala” hat, where he managed to camera-bomb a CNN interview with Chuck Schumer in character.

Daily Wire also purchased the domain Project2025.com and used it to market the documentary. Project 2025 is one of the major concerns/talking points for Democrats. Walsh distributed literature driving DNC attendees to the site to “learn more.” In doing so, his producer landed an interview with Don Lemon and succeeded in getting Lemon to promote the site, a video of which Lemon himself posted on X. Lemon has since deleted the post, presumably after realizing he had been trolled.

Walsh put in appearances on Stay Free w/ Russell Brand, Piers Morgan Uncensored, The Megyn Kelly Show, and The Roseanne Barr Podcast, as well as Daily Wire network shows like The Ben Shapiro Show, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, and Yes or No with Michael Knowles.

What can we say? There’s not only box office to be made with right wing audiences, but docus in the post-Covid era can still pull people off the couch. Note, the trailer for Dinesh D’Souza’s Vindicating Trump is playing ahead of the Walsh docu.

The weekend is not without its causalities and that’s unfortunately Lionsgate’s Dave Bautista action comedy, The Killer’s Game, which came in at $2.6M at 2,623 locations. For the Dune and Guardians of the Galaxy actor, it’s his lowest wide opening to date of his career, under the 2018 ensemble Hotel Artemis at $3.2M.

Despite the lackluster turnout here, those who watched the movie gave it a B+ on CinemaScore, but PostTrak moviegoers were harder at 63% positive and a very low 45% recommend.

What’s going on here? The trailer for this movie about a hitman with a life-threatening disease who puts a hit on himself looked great out of CinemaCon. I understand for the longest time the pic’s total awareness on one tracking firm’s sheets were under 30% on Quorum (the tracking firm polls a mix of frequent and casual moviegoers where as NRG covers frequent moviegoers), and if you can’t hit that number for a stretch heading into opening, the film won’t open to north of $5M. Lionsgate sought to make this long-gestating project a directorial reality for their John Wick stuntman J.J. Perry.

Had the film opened to $4M-$6M, I understand that Lionsgate would breakeven, eek some money; their action movies reaping the bulk of their cash in the home market. How does that pencil out? Essentially when financially structuring these movies, you start backwards, figuring out how much a streaming partner and foreign sales will commit; this Bautista movie costing under $30M. This ultimately leads to a very limited exposure for Lionsgate, along with a $15M theatrical advertising commitment, predominantly digital. The question is whether that was enough to open the movie. I understand some close to the film wanted a different release date, i.e. January ala Lionsgate’s Gerard Butler movie Plane, which opened to $11.8M 4-day over MLK 2023 and was very profitable for the studio grossing $32.1M worldwide. However, Lionsgate didn’t have a spot and Bautista is busy about to shoot The Wrecking Crew for the rest of Q3 into Q4.

Lionsgate has figured a way to limit their exposure and not overspend on marketing and the proof is in the earnings: Their motion picture segment profit for Q1 2025 (ending Aug. 8) was up 24% to $86.1M due to movies like The Strangers: Chapter One $35.2M domestic), despite the division’s revenue being off 15% to $347.3M. In regards to Francis Ford Coppola’s expected misfire, Megalopolis, set to open to $5M — Lionsgate is simply a gun for hire: They aren’t on the hook for marketing spend, rather collect a fee from Coppola no matter what the $120M epic grosses.

There’s also an argument to be made that when it comes to Batista’s solo box office drawing power, he’s still young in his career, though there’s promise. Stuber opened in a pre-Covid, much healthier marketplace to $8.2M in July 2019. Let’s not forget that Dwayne Johnson had many missteps early on in his theatrical career which he weathered (Walking Tall and Gridiron Gang openings weren’t jawdropping, but their respective openings look rich by today’s standards at $16M and $14M) before his solo career went to another threshold with movies like San Andreas and Black Adam.

According to RelishMix, the social media universe reach on Killer’s Game across X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook counted 49M, which is -75% below genre norms of action pics.

Conversation per the social media analytics firm “is running mixed with chatter that’s leery of a John Wick clone… ‘This is nothing new this 100% copy cat of John Wick.’”

Demos on Killer’s Game were 64% men, close to half over 35 with 25-34 year olds being the biggest turnout at 28%. Diversity demos were 41% Caucasian, 21% Latino and Hispanic, 15% Black, 14% Asian American & 9% NatAm/Other. The Killer’s Game is playing best on the coasts with the AMC Fresh Meadows in NY the pic’s best venue with less than $9K so far (yikes).

While Lionsgate can manage their margins to some form of breakeven or profitability, the greater loss here stands within the general exhibition ecosystem. With Killer’s Game being the first of five theatrical releases for Lionsgate for the rest of 2024, sources around town have remarked about the stress upon the studio’s marketing division. How can they withstand it or yield great results? There were a ton of one sheet posters for Killer’s Game, and that’s always a sign of a studio’s commitment to a title. Is Lionsgate just cleaning their slate to get to the good stuff in 2025, i.e. Michael at Easter? They do not have a tentpole like last November’s Hunger Games. While the studio can play for singles, they should be wary about the snowball effect that can create, read Killer’s Game was trailered on Borderlands, a movie that no one saw. If they keep underdelivering, then it will become harder for them to book bigger auditoriums with exhibition. That is unless they have a few big tentpoles they can hold over exhibition’s head.

No 10 goes to Fathom’s God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust at 1,392 venues with $500K on Friday, a projected $1.466M 3-day and running four-day of $1.8M. The movie is playing the faith-based tracks quite well in the South, South Central and Midwest with the AMC Westgate 20 in Arizona the movie’s top multiplex with under $3k.

Amazon MGM Studios’ Sundance pick-up, My Old Ass, did $171K for the weekend with a $24,5K per theater off seven cites in New York, Los Angeles, and Austin. Next weekend expands to 32 theaters in ten markets followed by a wider break the following weekend. The Megan Park directed, Aubrey Plaza starring, LuckyChap produced indie had solid numbers across the board.

The chart is updated with Sunday numbers:

via Deadline