Normally, I save the top ten totals for the very end of the box office report. This weekend, though, it's imperative that we all understand right up front that the top ten movies in America this weekend grossed only $45.2 million. Say that number aloud. $45.2 million. The entire top ten only made $200,000 more than the opening weekend of Horton Hears a Who! from 17 years ago.
In the history of pre-2000 March weekends, March 13-15, 2025 came in only slightly ahead of $42.19 million haul of March 3-5, 1995, when Man of the House was number one at the box office. This frame, meanwhile, was only 9% ahead of the March 24-26, 1995 frame when Outbreak was atop the domestic box office for the third consecutive weekend. Meanwhile, this weekend was beneath the March 21-31, 1985 frame ($45.55 million) when Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment opened in 1985, the March 22-24, 1985 frame ($45.4 million) when Friday the 13th - Part V dominated the box office, and the March 19-21, 1993 frame ($47.27 million) when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III opened.
These are just a few of the many March weekends of the distant past March 13-15, 2025 either only narrowly outpaced or fell shockingly beneath. None of those outcomes take inflation into account. The worst March weekend gross I could find from 2000 to 2020 is the March 3-5, 2000 frame when Whole Nine Yards topped the box office and the top ten grossed $58.83 million.
This weekend was also beneath the March 13-15, 2020 frame that Onward's second weekend led, AKA the final weekend before theaters shut down. That frame still produced a title that cracked $10+ million domestically in a single weekend. No frame in either March 2022 or 2023 came this low and the former month arrived only 11 months after Godzilla vs. Kong truly ushered the return of movie theaters.
This is a truly abhorrent box office total that can be chalked up to a multitude of factors, including audiences not being as willing to embrace original concepts as they once were. However, the dire lack of major new movies in the marketplace is the real culprit. Through corporate consolidation, sheer laziness, and other factors, major studios have largely abandoned the 11 weekends of 2025. That’s how you get a historic (for all the wrong reasons) frame like this one.
Atop this crummy box office weekend was Novocaine, which grossed $8.7 million. $1.7 million of that (20% of its domestic opening weekend) came from Thursday showings and sneak previews, meaning this Jack Quaid star vehicle was incredibly frontloaded. That's slightly below the $8.9 million domestic bow of last spring's The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. In the pantheon of action-comedies, Novocaine also came in noticably behind the $9.45 million bow of Keanu from nine years ago.
There’s really no good news for this $18 million budgeted feature beyond the fact that it’s not the worst gross for a modern movie topping the box office. Exempting 2020-2021 titles, 21st century films like Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, Bangkok Dangerous, and The Covenant had worse bows. Still, this is an underwhelming bow for a feature Paramount really did rally around. The studio picked up a costly Super Bowl commercial (which cost $8 million to secure, only slightly below Novocaine’s domestic debut weekend) and creatively sending Quaid out to major sports game in a neck brace. However, this premise clearly wasn’t one audiences were enamored with in the ads.
Novocaine also got hurt by immediately following up a deluge of 2025 newcomers that were offering similar bloody R-rated material. As of this writing, 14 2025 movies have cracked $10 million domestically. A whopping seven of them (all dropping over nine weeks from January 10 through March 14) are R-rated films full of punching, blood, and dismemberment. A shocking amount (Love Hurts and Heart Eyes namely) were, like Novocaine, also either horror or action films promising romance to go with an avalanche of gory deaths. That alone diluted the novelty of Novocaine, but this trend also explains why the marketplace is slumping. Time and time again over the last three years, studies have emerged showing that teenagers and young people love going to the movies.
Why aren’t we making more movies for them? It’d be one thing if the marketplace was full of challenging R-rated dramas like Michael Mann’s The Insider or Steve McQueen’s Widows that might not inherently fascinate potential 16-year-old Instead, 2025 is clogged with R-rated action films sweatily asking the same demographic of 40+ year old folks to “Remember slasher movies? Remember Gerard Butler movies? Remember the Universal Monsters?” Meanwhile, the second-biggest live-action movie of the year so far is One of Them Days, a title speaking directly to the economic woes of young people and starring performers (Keke Palmer and SZA) that resonat with people under 30. Let’s make more movies aimed at the next generation of audiences Hollywood…and maybe make more features that aren’t just R-rated dismemberment. Remember rom-com’s? Like The Lost City, which made $100+ million domestically just three March’s ago?
Anywho, Novocaine beat out last weekend’s victor Mickey 17, which didn’t reclaim itself after a poor opening weekend. Dropping 59%, Mickey 17 only grossed another $7.5 million for a $33.2 million domestic total. Hitting Parasite's $53.86 million domestic gross is looking highly unlikely for Bong Joon-ho's latest directorial effort. This holdover basically tied with the second-biggest wide release newcomer of the weekend.
Steven Soderbergh's excellent new spy movie Black Bag opened to a so-so $7.5 million. That's behind past Soderbergh debuts like Logan Lucky ($7.6 million), Magic Mike's Last Dance ($8.3 million), Haywire ($8.42 million), and Side Effects ($9.3 million). Believe it or not, this is one of Michael Fassbender's highest non-Alien/X-Men star vehicle openings, coming in only slightly behind The Counselor's $7.84 million. Heck, this debut nearly tripled the opening of Fassbender's 2023 film Next Goal Wins!
Anchoring a film on a cast of talented performers who aren’t huge A-listers (save for Cate Blanchett obviously) was always going to limit Black Bag’s debut. Even before COVID, the political thriller had a wonky 21st-century box office track record. Broken City, a 2013 Mark Wahlberg star vehicle with 20th Century Fox marketing, barely opened better than Black Bag with an $8.26 million debut. It would’ve been awesome to see Black Bag really break out given its quality and the urgency of seeing more non-tentpoles thrive in the marketplace. However, at least its bow was within reasonable expectations.
Captain America: Brave New World, in its fifth weekend, dropped 35% to gross another $5.47 million and a $185.39 million domestic total. Maybe it gets past $200 million? Whether it does or doesn't, this is a poor showing for an MCU movie.
The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie plopped into 2,827 theaters this weekend courtesy of Ketchup Entertainment and grossed $3.1 million. This middling opening is by far the biggest bow ever for a Ketchup Entertainment release (its previous victor was Hypnotic's $2.4 million bow) while also scoring the 22nd worst opening weekend in history for a movie opening in over 2,500 theaters. The Day the Earth Blew Up was once destined for an HBO Max release before it got sold off to various global distributors as an independent theatrical film. It existing in theaters at all is a bit of a triumph, but considering Ketchup spent considerable coin getting into 2,827 theaters, it should’ve done better.
Here's an interesting factoid: per Deadline, Blew Up’s opening day audience was 61% non-families. Lot of animation nerds (eager to see some hand-drawn animation on the big screen) lining up to see this one. Unfortunately, given that it’s skewing older, expect The Day the Earth Blew Up to be frontloaded. If the older crowd already showed up, then this one’s going off a cliff in the weeks ahead.
The Last Supper opened to $2.82 million from 1,575 locations. Not a bad debut, but not especially good in the pantheon of faith-based March cinema. Right behind that newcomer was Paddington in Peru in its fifth weekend of release. Falling another 25%, Paddington's now grossed $41.31 million domestically. Dog Man grossed $2.5 million this frame, a 26% dip from last weekend. It's now grossed $92.81 million domestically. Does this have the $7.2 million necessary to crack $100 million domestically? Depends how well it holds against Snow White next weekend.
In its fourth weekend, The Monkey dipped 37% and grossed another $2.46 million. Its domestic haul now stands at $35.2 million. There's a chance this just gets past $40 million domestically, a mark only two A24 horror movies (Talk to Me and Hereditary) have ever crossed. In its third frame, Last Breath eased 44% to gross another $2.3 million. Its domestic total now stands at $18.56 million and should become the third consecutive Focus Features title to crack $20 million domestically sometime next weekend. Mufasa: The Lion King had what's likely its last single weekend gross above $1 million this weekend with a $1.19 million 13th weekend haul for a $252.4 million domestic haul.
Not even A24 could escape the weekend’s box office doldrums since its new wide release Opus cratered at the box office. Opening to only $1 million, Opus had nothing short of an atrocious debut. That bow's more reminiscent of the $994,430 debut of A24's third-ever immediate wide release title, Free Fire, from April 2017 rather than a major 2025 title opening in just over 1,700 theaters. After it scored poor reviews out of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, Opus was basically DOA, especially with so many other thriller/horror titles in the marketplace. A24 centering all its marketing resources on near-future titles Death of a Unicorn and Warfare instead similarly sealed its fate.
Anora dropped 64% this weekend after its big post-Best Picture win expansion last frame. Grossing another $640,000, it's now at $19.9 million domestically and will surpass $20 million domestically sometime this week. In the Lost Lands collapsed 79% this weekend to gross another $222,000 for a $1.74 million domestic gross. Briarcliff Entertainment launched the documentary October 8 in 127 locations and it grossed $190,500 for a $1,500 per theater average. Speaking of documentaries,
Becoming Led Zeppelin grossed another $160,000 (down 49%) to bring its domestic total to $9.8 million. $10+ million is in sight! Eephus expanded to 30 locations in its second weekend and grossed $77,094 for a $2,570 per theater average. It's now grossed $107,104 domestically. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, meanwhile, expanded into 17 locations and grossed $21,664 for a $42,346 total. Finally, Neon quietly dumped The Actor into 23 locations this weekend and it grossed only $20,200 for an $878 per theater average.
Well, that’s this weekend’s box office report. A dismal frame that really shouldn’t be happening four years after theaters began to truly get back on their feet in North America. Snow White’s advance ticket sales don’t paint a rosy picture of an imminent box office savior coming next weekend. However, simply for the sake of independent theater owners, let’s hope it can be the first of many more lucrative titles imbuing the box office with more life this spring. Goodness knows any 2025 weekend coming in behind the weekend Police Academy 2 opened has plenty of room for drastic improvement.