For the first time since The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in November 2023 (19 months ago), Lionsgate opened a movie to $20+ million. As I wrote for Pajiba last week, Lionsgate's trying to regain its financial footing. So far, Lionsgate's 2020s have been plagued with all-time bombs like Borderlands, The Crow, Moonfall, The Expendables 4, and more. Reaffirming that this mini-major can still launch non-Hunger Games films past the $20+ million mark on opening weekend isn’t a bad start to a long-term recovery. But before we get to Lionsgate’s Ballerina, let’s briefly examine the reigning domestic box office champion.
Yes, Lilo & Stitch led the domestic box office again for the third consecutive weekend. This live-action remake of a Disney classic grossed another $32.5 million this frame for a $335.79 million 17-day domestic total. That's a 47% decline from last weekend, slightly bigger than the 42% and 44% third weekend declines of Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, respectively. If Aladdin is any indication, Stitch probably has around $120-ish million left in the tank domestically, which would take it to $450+ million in North America. That would make Stitch quite a bit bigger than A Minecraft Movie, rendering it 2025's biggest film domestically so far.
And now we come to Ballerina, the latest John Wick offshoot and Lionsgate’s closest thing to a tentpole in summer 2025. Grossing just $25 million over its opening weekend, this Ana de Armas star vehicle had a lower domestic debut than all of the John Wick sequels, including entries like John Wick: Chapter 2 that cost less than half as much to make. Audiences gave this title an A- CinemaScore, which indicates that the moviegoers who did show up did like what they saw. However, there just wasn’t much demand for more John Wick outings that didn’t focus on the saga’s titular lead.
Ballerina also suffered in its marketing from lacking a distinctive adversary (like John Wick 4’s ads could lean on Donnie Yen) while de Armas doesn’t have the lengthy legacy of action cinema that Reeves has. Plus, after John Wick: Chapter 4 provided such a definitive end to this franchise, going back for a spin-off reeked of being a strained cash-grab. Though Ballerina left all other 2024 and 2025 Lionsgate titles in the dust on opening weekend, its underwhelming bow suggested the John Wick franchise might not have much of a life beyond solo John Wick titles. Good luck, Lionsgate, with that universe of John Wick spin-offs.
Ballerina is also another example of how supposedly “safe” spin-offs and franchise extensions are, more often than not, lagging behind original movies at the domestic box office. Given that it was pretty frontloaded over the week on a day-to-day basis (it went up only 19% from Friday to Saturday, discounting Thursday night screenings), it’s doubtful Ballerina makes more than $60 million domestically. In the history of Lionsgate movies, that would put Ballerina behind Madea's Family Reunion from 19 years ago, Warm Bodies, Hacksaw Ridge, and right on par with Why Did I Get Married Too? Among 2025 domestic movies, Ballerina would only make $10 million more than One of Them Days, an original R-rated comedy that cost 16% of Ballerina's $90 million budget. Ballerina’s projected $60 million finish would also put it behind other 2020s titles like Civil War, The Woman King, Cocaine Bear, Anyone But You, and A Man Called Otto.
Instead of milking franchises like John Wick, The Exorcist, Snow White, Ghostbusters, Transformers, and The Karate Kid for more money, why not make something new in the marketplace? Yes, audiences are showing up in droves for "chicken jockey!" and live-action Stitch, but Sinners, One of Them Days, and The Wild Robot's successes demonstrate a hunger for new storytelling as well from general audiences. Ballerina was meant to be a “bulletproof” summer blockbuster spin-off, but a familiar name did nothing to help it out financially.
Okay, enough rambling about Ballerina’s box office shortcomings, let’s move on to other holdovers and newbies. In its third frame, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning grossed another $15 million (down 46% from last frame) for a $149.2 million domestic total. $200+ million in North America now looks out of reach for Ethan Hunt's final adventure, but it should arrive at a domestic total reminiscent of Rogue Nation's $191 million finish from July 2015.
Karate Kid: Legends had a second weekend drop more akin to an adult-skewing legacy sequel rather than a kids' movie, as it fell 57% to gross another $8.7 million for a $35.4 million domestic total. Even if it cost only $45 million, these aren't good numbers for a big summertime sequel playing in over 3,800 theaters. Final Destination: Bloodlines kept killing it at the box office with another $6.5 million, a 40% drop from last frame for a mighty $123.5 million domestic total.
Wes Anderson's latest eccentric comedy, The Phoenician Scheme, expanded into 1,678 theaters this weekend and grossed $6.27 million in its first wide release frame. That's a drop from Asteroid City's $9.05 million wide release bow and The Grand Budapest Hotel's $8.53 million launch in 977 theaters. However, it did come in above the $5.47 million wide release debut of Isle of Dogs from April 2018 and the $2.6 million wide release bow of The French Dispatch from back in October 2021.
In the history of Wes Anderson's wide release debuts, Hotel and City are clearly the biggest exceptions. All things considered, this is a fine launch for The Phoenician Scheme, especially if it can even hold up alright over the impending Father's Day and Juneteenth weekends. After ten days in domestic release (including a week of limited release play), Scheme has grossed just a few thousand dollars shy of $7 million.
Out of last weekend's new wide releases, who'd have thunk that the graphically violent horror film would have a better hold than the family-friendly legacy sequel? That's just what happened with Bring Her Back, which fell a solid 50% from opening weekend to gross another $3.5 million. After ten days, this Sally Hawkins horror feature has now grossed $14.2 million. One more sharp weekend-to-weekend decline and this gets to join the still rarified company of A24 titles that exceeded $20+ million domestically.
Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye grossed $3.09 million over its opening weekend from just 1,080 theaters for a per-theater average just under $2,854. That terrific debut already makes it the fifth-biggest GKIDS release in history. This title continues the hot box office streak GKIDS has been on in 2025, with the studio grossing roughly $14.7 million domestically to date this year. It looks assured that this indie distributor, throughout all of 2025, will surpass $20 million in an annual box office haul for only the second time ever, especially with titles like a Shin Godzilla re-release on the horizon.
Sinners, now in its eighth weekend of theatrical release, just kept going, dropping 44% for another $2.9 million and a domestic total just over $272 million. This miracle box office performer probably still has another $11-14 million left in the tank, an astonishing feat for this leggy smash. Rounding out the top ten was Summer 2025's kick-off title, Thunderbolts*. This Marvel Studios project fell another 48% this frame to gross an additional $2.5 million for a so-so $186.49 million domestic total.
Dangerous Animals, an Australian shark movie starring Jai Courtney, opened to $1.55 million right outside the top ten in 11th place this weekend. That's down roughly 28% from the debut of last year's early summer IFC Films horror release, In a Violent Nature. Given that IFC did do some major promotional stunts for this title (like outdoor poolside early screenings in conjunction with Alamo Drafthouse), I'm sure IFC wanted Animals to perform closer to Clown in a Cornfield than Nature. Still, it’s a crowded landscape for horror movies right now, so Animals was always going to have a tough time breaking out. Plus, before last year’s Late Night with the Devil, it was hard to imagine any IFC title that wasn’t My Big Fat Greek Wedding debuting to seven-digit figures.
Friendship fell 58% in its third wide release weekend and grossed another $1.08 million for a $14.73 million domestic total. The Last Rodeo, in its third frame, fell 52% to gross another $1.02 million for a $12.95 million total. DOGMA: Resurrected! A 25th Anniversary Celebration grossed $978,492 from a smattering of screenings at 700 locations this weekend for a lifetime domestic gross of $31.62 million. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life lost almost half of its theaters from last weekend (it's currently playing in 291 locations) and fell 64% as a result. Grossing another $190,162, it's now made $1.44 million domestically.
Neon's been building up Mike Flanagan's The Life of Chuck for months now, including dropping its first trailer initially as a theatrical-exclusive on Mickey17 screenings. However, this Stephen King adaptation got off to a rocky limited release start of $216,031 from 16 locations for a $13,502 per theater average. We'll see how it does when it expands into wide release on Friday. I Don't Understand You, a wacky dark comedy set in Italy, bowed to an underwhelming $164,213 from 253 locations for a $649 per theater average.
The top ten movies this weekend grossed $105.9 million, way below average for an early June frame. June 8-10, 2018, for instance, cracked $109.6 million, while June 9-11, 2017, grossed $137.3 million. Two years ago, the combined might of an exceptional second Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse weekend and an okay Transformers: Rise of the Beasts opening propelled the box office to $163.2 million. 2025's 23rd frame, the June 7-9 weekend, grossed $158.32 million when The Secret Life of Pets 2 was on top of the charts. Meanwhile, this is a drastic step down from all but two of the last nine weekends, which were buoyed by overperforming titles like Minecraft, Sinners, and Lilo & Stitch.
Since Ballerina was the only major new wide release (read: it was the only newcomer bowing in 2,000+ theaters), it was inevitable this weekend wouldn't stack up to previous early June's that had multiple massive titles debuting at once, like even the June 5-7, 2015 frame when Spy and Insidious: Chapter 3 both opened to $22.69+ million debuts each. The box office should pick back up after this one-weekend lull next frame when the live-action How to Train Your Dragon debuts and makes a go at becoming only the 16th movie ever to open to $85+ million domestically in June. So far, summer 2025 has grossed just over $1.168 billion, putting it only a bit behind pre-March 2020 summertime frames like summer 2009, summer 2014, and summer 2017 at the same point.
Here's one final observation on this frame: the number of indie films in the top 12. By indie, I mean titles that aren't from the big five studios (Disney, Paramount, Sony/Columbia, Warner Bros., or Universal Pictures) or Lionsgate. Out of the 12 biggest movies in America this weekend, five hailed from indie labels, including Universal's arthouse distributor Focus Features. In contrast, three indie films were in the top 12 back in this same frame in 2015, and two of those were in the 11th and 12th slots. In this same frame in 2010, the only indie title in the top 12 was the UTV Motion Pictures release Raajneeti, and only two (Booksmart and Bharat) were in the top 12 over this frame in 2019. These indie titles have ballooned in presence mostly because the major studios have heavily consolidated how many movies they make annually and the elimination of 20th Century Fox as a standalone distributor. Still, very interesting to see almost half of the 12 biggest movies in America in the first weekend of June hail from indie studios.