There’s a bit of a calm spell at the box office before the Freakier Friday–Weapons double bill happening next weekend; that’s the frame everyone is excited about with a potentially over-indexing female millennial title and an enigmatic original horror movie with Kubrick-ian tones. Overall first weekend of August is $126M per Comscore, which is -27% from a year ago.

Still, there was a nice variety on the marquee to keep audiences interested, not just superhero movies, but a family animated movie, the potential comeback of big screen comedy and an indie hipster horror film.

For now, the first weekend of August has The Fantastic Four: First Steps at $11.7M million on Friday for a $40M second sesh, and $198.4M running cume. That’s a 66% decline in the vicinity of Captain America: Brave New World (-68%), but harder than Thunderbolts* (-56%) which indicates the front-loaded rush to Marvel’s first family. The pic is booked at 4,125 theaters. Craters is a big word as sixty percentile drops are par for the course with superhero films — but we can’t deny that this is sharper than Superman‘s very good -53% second weekend hold. On the upside, Fantastic Four‘s first ten days are pacing 19% ahead of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, that movie ending its stateside run at $214.5M. What’s clear is that there’s a ceiling here for certain types of superhero IP. In addition, let’s fact it, Marvel made a very good movie in Fantastic Four evident that it’s the franchise’s highest grossing of all-time.

Imax at $5.2M repped 13% of the pic’s second weekend, the large format exhibitor counting a running total of $26.3M.

DreamWorks Animation’s The Bad Guys 2, playing at 3,852 sites, is doing slightly better than the 2022 original with a $9.2M first day (which includes previews) and an estimated three-day total of $22.2M.

Interesting to note that it’s the first sequel to a DreamWorks Animation post-Covid born property (Trolls was launched in 2016). While the gross is right where it should be and alright for a net $80M production movie, we’ve seen better results for sequels from DWA (Trolls Band Together opened to $30M, but that had songs and Justin Timberlake). An A CinemaScore, just like the first film. Kids under 12 gave it a 90% positive score with overall audiences grading the sequel with a 67% definite recommend. Even play throughout the nation with best results in South, South Central, Midwest and Mountain regions. AMC Burbank is the best in show with $30K through yesterday.

In regard to diverse demos, turnout was 41% Caucasian, 22% Latino and Hispanic, 18% Black and 12% Asian American. Male-to-female turnout was 50/50. Audience make-up was 36% general audience, 29% parents, and 35% kids under 12.

A very commendable job here by Paramount for taking the big screen comedy to higher levels post Covid (note, it’s not a hybrid comedy, ala Deadpool & Wolverine which is comedy plus superheroes) with The Naked Gun which is opening t $17M ($2M ahead of where tracking spotted it) at 3,344.

Why commendable? This is a piece of comedy IP which largely means something to people over the age of 45, and Paramount casted the movie with older stars. Those were the high stakes. Liam Neeson is a guy who has been satirizing his crusty action star ways in SNL skits and ESPN bits. Paramount emulated what Jerry and David Zucker and Jim Abrahams did with Leslie Nielsen in Airplane! and Naked Gun!, read turning a straight-laced leading man into a deadpan comedy star. You could argue that Paramount should have gone with a younger cast (i.e. Pete Davidson, Dylan O’Brien), however, for them to overindex here with great critical and audiences exits (A- CinemaScore–the same grade as 1988 original, 4 1/2 stars and a 67% definite recommend on PostTrak), va bene, va bene.

Paramount truly committed to pushing the movie. Seriously, some studios would have bailed, pulled back their marketing, or just harped on one demo and underperformed their tracking projections. Paramount showed the movie off early with a tastemaker screening with comedy personalities on the Melrose lot, plastered outdoor, and had clever marketing stunts (a 35-Foot Frank Drebin inflatable in the convention center as well as urinal cakes in the men’s room at San Diego Comic-Con, LOL). The trailer dropped on social in time with its reveal at CinemaCon and racked up 135M views in seven days. The second trailer did 148M views in its first week.

Billboards around Los Angeles, New York and other major cities read “Honk if you hate noise violations” and “Criminals, you’ve made your last misteak.” Buses and bus stops around major cities showed images of Neeson and Anderson with lines like “Nobody gets off. Unless it’s their stop” and “I’ll ride anything once.” Parking lot entrance gates at malls in LA had an image of Neeson with his badge drawn with the line “Total Cop Blockers.”

And Neeson returned to ESPN for a promo integration:

The social media universe reach on Naked Gun via TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram is +17% over other comedy movies with 181M before opening. Anderson was active on social to her 6M followers while Neeson was off the grid.

Says RelishMix, “Positive convo for The Naked Gun is very promising, as those familiar with the perennial parody predecessor are excited at the promise of more eccentric antics. A return to old-school comedy is enticing many, with comments like, ‘I can’t believe this I laughed so hard on this I hope they keep the humor going,’ and ‘We need more comedies in theaters again. So excited for this!’ Even those who weren’t the biggest fans are being lured in: ‘I was never a big fan of The Naked Gun growing up, but I’ve come to appreciate it more with age. Looks like it’s going to be great.’ One such joke that has many doubling over with laughter is a reference to one of the original stars of the series, O.J. Simpson. From the trailer, fans shared, ‘The dig at OJ! Just perfect.’”

It’s the second highest opening for a Naked Gun film after 1991’s Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear which debuted to $20.8M (unadjusted for inflation). In a very good sign, the young ones are in on the joke with the 25-34 set being the largest demo to buy tickets at 27%. 18-34 was 47%, which is the sweet spot. The 25-34 and 35-44 set gave the comedy its best definite recommend scores respectively of 73% and 74%. Male leaning overall at 62%. The over 45 audience, who know this IP quite well, repped 31% of the crowd.

The opening also reps Neeson’s biggest opening as leading star (not voice-over, cameo, narrator, supporting, etc.) since 2014’s Taken 3 ($39.2M opening). Currently, the pic’s weekend is $2M higher than the opening of the Jennifer Lawrence R-rated comedy No Hard Feelings from 2023 — that was Sony’s attempt to revive the big-screen comedy.

Diversity demos were 70% Caucasian, 15% Latino and Hispanic, 6% Asian American and 5% Black. Best areas of play are the West with the Midwest and Mountain regions overperforming. AMC Burbank in LA is currently the pic’s top grossing multiplex at just over $67,5K through Saturday night.

Warner Bros/DC Studios’ fourth weekend of James Gunn’s Superman is seeing an estimated $13.9M, -44%, for a running cume by Sunday of $316.2M. Friday was around $4M. Through the end of today, the movie is pacing 5% behind the running total of Matt Reeves’ 2022 The Batman, which ended its stateside run at $369.3M.

Fifth is Universal’s Jurassic World Rebirth at 3,240 locations with a Friday of $2.46M and a fifth weekend of $8.7M, -34%, and a running total by Sunday EOD of $317.6M. That’s 9% behind the running total of the previous chapter Jurassic World: Dominion, which finaled at $376.8M.

Neon’s Together is sixth with $2.2M on Friday, $6.8M over three days and $10.8M over five days. On the high end, that’s very close to Midsommar‘s Wednesday-Sunday take of $10.9M. An OK 49% definite recommend with 77% under 35. Largely male at 52%. Diversity demos are 46% Caucasian, 25% Latino and Hispanic, 12% Asian American, and 11% Black. Best definite recommends came from men over 25 (38% of the crowd) at 54% as well as the 45-54 demo who gave it a 63%. Close to half the audience came with a date, spouse, partner — which makes sense as the movie is about a couple who grow way too close. Best markets were West and South Central.

Various cute stunts here from Brie and Franco playing with rats (instead of puppies), the real-life married couple reading thirsty tweets about themselves, a therapy stunt offer for moviegoing couples at therapy service OurRitual (for those uploading a photo of their ticket), as well as a social media stunt where NEON showed off celebrity couple pop culture moments, i.e. Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet courtside at the Knick’s game, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s pre-wedding kiss on the Venice canals, and Paul Mescal and Gracie Abrams caught kissing—to reframe them through the lens of Together‘s themes of toxic codependency. The gist was to grab non-genre and non-NEON audiences.

Comscore says summer to date stands at $3 billion, +5% ahead of last year’s first weekend in May to first weekend in August. The year to date box office for Jan. 1-Aug. 3 stands at $5.4 billion, +10% from the same frame in 2024.

Sunday AM numbers — reflected in bold

via Deadline