Spider-Man may have lost the battle, but he’s won the war. By this time tomorrow, Spider-Man: Brand New Day will have surpassed Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the highest grossing movie of all time stateside. Yes, yes, that’s without inflation (in today’s ticket prices, Force would’ve made $1 billion), yada, yada, yada, but there is no shortchanging how insane it is that Brand New Day was able to pull this off. Who knows how big Doomsday will be this Christmas. We could have two $2 billion global hits in a single year. What superhero fatigue?
Dethroning Spidey for the top spot is Practical Magic 2, but that’s unfortunately where the good news ends for this long-delayed sequel to the 1998 dark comedy which gained new life through cable TV repeats and streaming. But this ain’t Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. As far as legacy follow-ups go, 2 Practical 2 Magic did “fine” with $30 million since opening on Thursday (which Warner Bros. is still counting as Friday despite very much wanting you to know it didn’t open on September 11th). But let’s be real, they were hoping for a lot more here. WB in general has had a rather disappointing 2026 as all of their major releases have underperformed and/or flat-out flopped. And that’s not even taking into account the Paramount-merger nonsense which has been dominating the press for months.
Elsewhere, Hollywood didn’t have much luck over September 11th (excuse me, “September 10th”), as The Uprising: Wait, it’s a Robin Hood Movie? failed to stir up a revolution, which is a shame since I liked the trailer. Critics didn’t like this much (although I think “Jason Bourne action except it’s a peasant” is a pretty good selling point), and audiences were a no-show, even with the tease of Robin Hood potentially rising. Sorry, Andrew Garfield, but I don’t think this is “scaring the shit out of” any billionaires.
There is some hope this weekend…in the form of a film literally called Hope, which did fine for what it was since opening on Wednesday (seriously, no one wanted to take on Friday this week!). But the real bright spot—again—was Buddy, which continues to exceed expectations with an excellent $21 million to date. I’ve tried telling multiple “real world” people about Buddy and none of them have had any idea what I was talking about, so online marketing really did all the heavy lifting here. But seriously, go see Buddy!
Wait, what the fuck was Runner?
Anyway, the top ten, via Deadline
1.) Practical Magic 2 4,146 theaters (WB) Fri $13M Sat $10.1M Sun $6.8M 3-day $30M/Wk 1
2.) Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony) 3,303 (-217) theaters, Fri $2M (-48%) Sat $3.85M Sun $2.55M 3-day $8.4M (-54%) Total $935.1M/Wk 7
3.) The Odyssey (Uni) 1,983 (-329) theaters, Fri $2.08M (-34%) Sat $3.1M Sun $2.19M 3-day $7.4M (-43%), Total $600.5M/Wk 9
4.) Runner (Angel) 2,568 theaters, Fri $2.5M Sat $2.2M Sun $1.8M 3-day $6.67M/Wk 1
5.) Coyote vs. Acme (Ketchup) 3,355 (-372) theaters, Fri $1.43M (-45%) Sat $2.66M Sun $2.1M 3-day $6.23M (-47%), Total $47.76M/Wk 3
6.) Buddy (RSA/Saban) 1,719 (-52) theaters, Fri $981K (-36%) Sat $1.45M Sun $1.089M 3-day $3.5M (-39%) Total $21.2M/Wk 3
7.) Insidious Out of the Further (Sony) 2,353 theaters, Fri $960K Sat $1.5M Sun $875K, 3-day $3.35M (-48%), Total $60.5M/Wk 4
8.) Hope (NEON) 1,560 theaters, Fri $975K, Sat $1.3M Sun $1M 3-day $3.3M, Total $5M/Wk 1
9. The Uprising (Foc) 2,068 theaters, Fri $1.39M Sat $1.1M Sun $720K, 3-day $3.25M/Wk 1
10.) By Any Means (Par) 2,903 theaters, Fri $745K (-73%) Sat $1M Sun $670K 30-day $2.5M (-67%), Total $13.48M/Wk 2
