Summer movie season officially started this weekend, with The Fall Guy opening to $28 million. That’s respectively less than more bullish tracking had it at $35-42 million, but for my money, those projections were always overly optimistic. The Fall Guy was originally pegged for a March slot, which would have checked out for the action/romantic comedy sub-genre, then Universal moved it to the seemingly more lucrative May kickoff tentpole position once Disney was forced to push back Deadpool and Wolverine due to that whole strike thing from last year. The problem with that is that The Fall Guy was difficult to sell as a can’t-miss blockbuster, no matter how fun it looked from the trailers.
Is The Fall Guy in trouble? Many seem to already be proclaiming it a flop due its reported $130-$150 million budget, but I think it’s too soon to jump ship on this one just yet. First and foremost, Universal made a great movie here. Critics love it and audiences are having a good time too. Also, there’s nothing really like The Fall Guy being released in the coming weeks as far as big dumb action films are concerned. So it could leg out. That said, this movie is bizarrely finding itself in an identity crisis as far as marketing is concerned, with some claiming it looks like a Barbie spin-off for Ryan Gosling’s Ken. And next week brings us Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which is set to really kick off summer and will hopefully bring some life to the box office.
In second place, we have not Challengers, but The Phantom Menace, which enjoyed by far the best rerelease numbers of the year so far with a take of $8 million. As a prequel defender, I’ll take that as vindication considering this reissue didn’t receive much promotion. And speaking of promotion, who the fuck had even heard of Dragonkeeper before this week? Apparently, it’s a Chinese animated film, presumably about dragons. It brought in $429 thousand.
As far as major new releases this weekend, the only one other than The Fall Guy was the PG-13 horror flick Tarot. That did $6 million, which I guess is fine for a film about an evil deck of cards. In general, horror has been struggling in 2024 for whatever reason.
Anyway, the top ten, via Deadline
1.) Fall Guy (Uni) 4,002 theaters, Fri $10.4M, Sat $10.2M Sun $7.7M 3-day $28.5M/Wk 1
2.) Star Wars The Phantom Menace (20th) 2,700 theaters, Fri $2.4M, Sat $4.6M Sun $1M 3-day $8.1M, Total lifetime $482.6M/Wk 1 re-release
3.) Challengers (AMZ MGM) 3,477 theaters, Fri $2.5M (-60%), Sat $2.9M Sun $2.1M 3-day $7.6M (-49%)/Total $29.5M/ Wk 2
4.) Tarot (Sony) 3,104 theaters, Fri $2.5M Sat $2.3M Sun $1.6M 3-day $6.5M/Wk 1
5.) Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Leg/WB) 2,884 theaters (-428), Fri $1M (-41%) Sat $2M Sun $1.37M 3-day $4.5M (-38%)/Total $188M/ Wk 6
6.) Civil War (A24) 2,689 (-829) theaters, Fri $977K (-49%) Sat $1.5M Sun $1M 3-day $3.55M (-48%), Total $62M/Wk 4
7.) Unsung Hero (LG) 2,832 theaters,Fri $867K (-77%) Sat $1.2M Sun $893K, 3-day $3M (-61%), Total $13.1M/Wk 2
8.) Kung Fu Panda 4 (Uni) 2,380 (-387) theaters, Fri $520K (-38%) Sat $1.1M Sun $740K 3-day $2.4M (-38%), Total $188.3M/Wk 9
9.) Abigail (Uni) 2,638 (-755) theatres, Fri $690K, Sat $1M Sun $600K 3-day $2.3M (-56%)/Total $22.7M/Wk 3
10.) Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony) 2,025 (-602) theaters, Fri $405K (-49%) Sat $865K Sun $530K 3-day $1.8M (-45%), Total $109.9M/Wk 7