It may be the weekend of the big game, but the box office is anything but super.
Our number one movie, once again, is Dog Man, but even there the news isn’t so good, as it plunged to $13 million in its second frame. Seriously, what happened? Did Universal drop the ball on marketing this after all and get lucky on its opening weekend thanks to the popularity of the books? Or was it just frontloaded? After opening to $36 million, Dog Man now has a total of just $54 million after two weekends. And this was looking like it had a shot at breaking $100 million. It’s not terrible, mind you. Dog Man will still bring in a profit. But it’s unfortunate we aren’t seeing any legs here. 2 Dog 2 Man may not happen after all.
And our openers, well…at least Heart Eyes got good reviews? The giddy slasher flick brought in $8 million, which I guess could be worse? At the very least, it’s better than Love Hurts, which brought in only $5.8 million. Ouch. Both movies were rated R, both were black comedies, and both were set at Valentine’s Day and supposedly aiming for the date movie crowd, although I never saw any marketing to actually suggest that was the case.
Note that Universal was originally going to release Bridget Jones 4 to theaters next week to coincide with the holiday, but made the weird decision to make it a Peacock exclusive in the states instead (it will still get a theatrical run in the UK). This means that couples are going to be spending their romantic evenings at Captain America: Brave New World, which I want to be optimistic for, but those reportedly dismal test screenings are going to be hard to overcome. And it’s not a good sign that Disney hasn’t even lifted the social media embargo yet.
In other news, the war between Mufasa and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 finally reached its climax as the singing lions pounced on the little blue hedgehog. That’s right, Mufasa has officially made more money in the US now. Sorry, guys, but hey, Sonic 3 is a great movie and also the second-biggest video game film of all time behind only The Super Mario Bros. Movie. It’s all good. Also, how the fuck is Moana 2 still in the top ten? I’ve literally never seen anyone express a passionate opinion about it outside of “DISNEY IS DEAD!” YouTube grifters. I guess people must be liking it, otherwise it wouldn’t be making this much shiny money.
Anyway, the top ten, via Deadline
- Dog Man (Uni) 3,857 (+2) theaters, Fri $3.2M (-70%) Sat $7.3M Sun $3.1M 3-day $13.7M (-62%), Total $54.1M/Wk 2
- Heart Eyes (Sony) 3,102 theaters, Fri $3.75M Sat $3.3M Sun $1.3M 3-day $8.5M, Wk 1
- Love Hurts (Uni) 3,055 theaters, Fri $2.6M, Sat $2.2M Sun $900K 3-day $5.8M/Wk 1
- Mufasa (Dis) 2,945 (-235) theaters, Fri $1M (-27%) Sat $2.1M Sun $824K 3-day $3.9M (-38%), Total $235.2M/Wk 8
- Companion (WB/NL) 3,285 theaters, Fri $1.06M (-74%) Sat $1.4M Sun $560K 3-day $3.02M (-68%), Total $15.4M/Wk 2
- One of Them Days (Sony) 2,051 (-255) theaters, Fri $1M (-40%) Sat $1.4M Sun $500K 3-day $3M (-50%) Total $39.3M/Wk 4
- Becoming Led Zeppelin (SPC) 369 theaters, Fri $1.3M, 3-day $2.62M/Wk 1
- Flight Risk (LG) 2,740 (-421) theaters, Fri $825K Sat $1.3M Sun $450K 3-day $2.6M (-50%) Total $25.1M/Wk 3
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Par) 2,061 (-604) theaters, Fri $405K (-40%) Sat $960K Sun $385K 3-day $1.75M (-46%), Total $233M/Wk 8
- Moana 2 (Dis) 1,785 (-415) theaters, Fri $370K (-36%) Sat $850K Sun $324K 3-day $1.54M (-46%), Total $456.1M /Wk 11