Animation was king at this weekend’s box office as Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and Elemental secured the top two spots while The Flash continues its horrific run.
It was a battle of weeks old animated fare at this weekends box office but it looks like Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse was able to pull off the upset and reclaim the top spot after four weeks in theaters with an estimated $19.3 million. That number represents just a 29% decline from last weeks $27.8 million finish. As we have said before, super hero fatigue isn’t really an issue, it is just bad movie fatigue! Make something good and audiences will show up and show up they have to the tune of over $500 million worldwide.
Coming in second is Pixar’s Elemental with an estimated $18.4 million, representing just a 38% decline from its opening, proving that a big opening isn’t always needed to find success at the box office. Think about Puss in Boots: The Last Wish that opened with just $12.4 million for the weekend with its 5-day gross at a still underwhelming $26.9 million, Yet families continued to show up and that film would ultimately prove a huge success with $185.5 million domestic, almost $40 million more than the original. Reviews have been mostly positive while also saying it isn’t necessarily Pixar’s best, audiences have enjoyed the animated film with a 92% audience score. With the notable exception of Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken, there really is no true kids fare hitting screens until Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem hits screens on August 2, so Elemental should have plenty of breathing room at the box office, and if I am being honest, Ruby Gillman probably isn’t much competition!
The big news of the week is just how much of a tumble The Flash is taking in its second weekend. With an estimated $15.2 million, that represents a pretty substantial 72% drop from its already horrible opening, marking the worst second week drop in the DCEU’s history surpassing the 71.5 drop The Suicide Squad saw in 2021. The lackluster response to this movie is actually pretty shocking. It had a lot of stuff going for it such as strong early reactions, praise from some big name stars and the nostalgic return of one of our greatest actors in one his biggest roles ever. The trailers all looked great, it had a prime release date. But I guess none of that mattered after you announce to the world that… well, none of it matters! Combine that with a star who has done some (alleged) horrible things and it just amounts to a film that couldn’t overcome. And that is a genuine shame as there were reports that had this movie been a financial hit, there was potential for Michael Keaton to return in full form for a Batman Beyond movie. Sadly with the absolute disaster Flash turned out to be, DC cancelled all future plans for Keaton movies, not realizing that Keaton was the one reason people did go see this movie and that a solo Keaton Batman film would probably be a huge hit.
Fourth place belongs to the new Jennifer Lawrence fronted hard R rated comedy No Hard Feelings with an estimated $15.1 million, a little over $100,000 less than Flash, so it is possible when final numbers are released tomorrow, No Hard Feelings could potentially move up a spot. That opening number is actually a pretty solid opening for a genre that hasn’t been super popular at the box office in recent years. With a fairly decent audience score of 87% and a relatively short run time of 103 minutes, this one has the potential to leg out to a healthy finish.
Rounding out the top five is Transformers: Rise of the Beasts with an additional $11.6 million as it pushes past both BumbleBee and The Last Knight in box office dollars, sadly it won’t hit those billion dollar highs the franchise once commanded, but this is a decent start at resurrecting the franchise(s) for the next generation of movie goers. I for one can not wait to see where they go next with the series, given the way this one ended.
The next big news of the week is the return of Wes Anderson to the top ten as his Asteroid City had a healthy expansion, pulling in $9.0 million on 1669 screens. The film has been seeing some decent reviews (including a 7/10 from our own Chris Bumbray) but is only seeing a 63% audience score with a B cinemascore meaning that those paying customers who maybe aren’t as familiar with Anderson’s style may not be responding to it the same way his long time fans are. Regardless, when all is said and done the film should have a healthy take over $60 million which is fairly solid for this $25 million budgeted film.
The remainder of the top ten are filled in with your holdover titles such as The Little Mermaid with $8.6 million and an impressive domestic total of $270.2, followed by the Marvel hit Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 with an additional $2.5 million added to its excellent $351.1 million domestic total with the bottom of the list being rounded out by horror titles The Blackening ($3.02 million) and The Boogeyman ($2.5 million).
What do you make of The Flash’s record breaking second weekend drop? Is the film being unfairly treated or is this about what you expected? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check out our weekly poll where we ask What is your favorite movie to not ever hit number 1 on the box office charts.