Think of this weekend as the calm before the storm.
“Black Adam,” a comic book adventure starring Dwayne Johnson, topped the box office for the third straight weekend with $18.5 million in North American ticket sales. It’s been another quiet time in cinemas as theater operators eagerly await Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which is expected to liven up the lackluster fall box office when it opens on November 11.
After three weeks of release, Black Adam has grossed $137.3 million and $319 million worldwide. It’s a solid result that vastly improves on another recent DC spinoff, 2021’s The Suicide Squad (which grossed $168 million worldwide while also playing on HBO Max in North America) and will soon overtake Shazam from 2019” (which earns 366 million worldwide). However, Warner Bros.’ latest standalone superhero story still has some way to go to justify its massive $195 million production budget.
In second place, a new anime film titled One Piece Film Red grossed $9.475 million from 2,367 North American theaters. It’s another modest win for Crunchyroll, a specialty anime label, after recent anime releases like Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero ($38 million domestically) and Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie ($34 million domestically). million US dollars domestically). Since these films have relatively small production and marketing budgets, they don’t need to break box office records to streamline their price tags.
“Sony-owned Crunchyroll has built a very popular business for its Japanese anime,” said David A. Gross, who runs film consultancy Franchise Entertainment Research. “It is impressive.”
“Ticket to Paradise,” a romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney, was #3 out of 4,066 venues with $8.5 million, down just 14% over its third weekend. The film has grossed $46.7 million to date and is expected to continue hitting the big screen through the fall. Despite the challenges rom-coms face at the box office, Ticket to Paradise managed to exceed expectations (thanks to the combined charms of Roberts and Clooney, of course) with $90.4 million at the international box office and $137 million worldwide. Universal spent $60 million on the film.
At No. 4, Paramount’s surprise hit “Smile” grossed $4 million in 3,046 theaters, bringing its domestic total to $99 million. As the psychological horror film nears $100 million in North America, “Smile” has surpassed $200 million worldwide – an excellent record for a film with a budget of $17 million.
Lionsgate’s supernatural thriller Prey for the Devil rounded out the top five at $3.87 million from 2,980 locations, down 48% from its debut. As of Sunday, the low-budget film has grossed a lackluster $13.64 million.
Outside of the top five, lively slasher film Terrifier 2 continued to impress, finishing at No. 10 over the weekend with $1.2 million from 1,245 theaters. The independent film, which is produced by Bloody Disgusting and distributed by Iconic Releasing, is already extremely profitable, having grossed $9.8 million on its $250,000 budget.
At #7, Martin McDonough’s The Banshees of Inisherin, an Irish film starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as lifelong friends in a dead end, grossed $2 million in 895 theatres. As the Searchlight movie slowly expands, it has grossed $3 million to date.
“Till” remained stable in eighth place with $1.875 million from 2,136 screens. The emotional biopic, starring Danielle Deadwyler as Emmett Till’s mother, grossed $6.5 million after four weeks of release, a decent result for a drama aimed at an adult audience in this day and age.
Another specialty title, James Grey’s semi-autobiographical Armageddon Time, struggled to break through as it expanded to 1,006 venues. The film Focus Features, starring Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong, grossed $810,000 — a dismal $802 per location. So far, “Armageddon Time” has grossed $902,000.
Overall, the box office brought in a sluggish $59.4 million over the weekend, according to Comscore. Even with the surprise hit of “Smile” and better-than-expected ratings for “Black Adam” and “Ticket to Paradise,” cinema owners need a blockbuster (or two) to get them through the winter. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the sequel to the billion-dollar smash, should deliver the goods, with box office experts predicting an opening weekend of between $175 million and $200 million.
“Next weekend,” says Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research, “business will return to world-class form with the opening of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”