Another weekend, another report in which I have to talk about a big movie like it’s a flop when it isn’t really one.

Once again, our number one movie is The Fantastic Four: First Steps, with $40 million in the Baxter Bank. That’s…not great. But it’s also not terrible. What’s evident is that First Steps took its first steps in an extremely frontloaded manner. Yes, yes, a total of $198 million at this stage of any film is not a thing to frown about, but this is a movie that needed to be truly fantastic for Marvel to not feel invisible, and while no one can say it’s doomed, it is getting torched compared to other tentpoles this summer.

Taking a Galactus-sized bite out of the market are three separate newcomers, lead by The Bad Guys 2 with $22 million. This is more or less on par with where tracking had it, but considering the onslaught of marketing we’ve had since the first trailer was attached to Wicked last year, I was kind of expecting this to pull in more. The original Bad Guys opened in 2022 as the box office was still in COVID recovery, and legged it out to $98 million. Hopefully the sequel has a similar run, since those reviews and exit scores are anything but bad.

You wanna know what else had great reviews and exit scores? The Naked Gun, which is possibly my favorite movie going experience this year. My theater wasn’t packed, but there were enough people there for the laughter to be infectious. It was magical, and I honestly can’t recommended this one enough. Go see this proudly stupid movie and have a grand time. Also, it made $17 million this weekend. Had it come out a decade ago, it probably would’ve opened in the $50 million range. Times truly have changed for the comedy genre.

Finally, there’s Together from NEON. This one is 99% “fresh” at Rotten Tomatoes, and the trailers are all eager to let you know that, filled with quotes like “IT’S FUCKING NUTS!” and “IT’S FUCKING INSANE!” You know they mean business, since critics aren’t supposed to say “fuck.” Anyway, this is a gross-out picture which is going to be way too much for general audiences, so $10 million since opening on Wednesday isn’t terrible

Anyway, the top ten, via The Numbers