Beetlejuice Beetlejuice rules the box office again as Speak No Evil has muted debut

Unsurprisingly, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice kept dominating the box office for the second consecutive weekend. Topping the marketplace again, the latest Tim Burton movie grossed $51.7 million. That’s a 53% drop, not too shabby for a movie that both opened to over $110 million and had $13 million in Thursday night grosses informing its North American bow. After ten days, the feature has reached $188.1 million. At the very least, this feature is getting to a $280 million domestic total. Going higher isn’t impossible if it holds nicely throughout October.

It's narrowly edged out 2001's Planet of the Apes after just ten days of release and it'll burst through Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's $206.4 million domestic haul likely this coming Friday. Needless to say, the original Beetlejuice's $74.49 million domestic haul has been left far far in the dust.

Speak No Evil was another recent Blumhouse title to only do so-so box office. Following AfrAId, Night Swim, and Imaginary, Speak No Evil grossed just $11.5 million this weekend. While nowhere near a failure, it’s a far cry from the $20+ million bows Universal/Blumhouse titles typically procured in the late 2010s. Among past Blumhouse titles, Speak No Evil opened lower than Fantasy Island, Oculus, The Gift, and The Boy Next Door. Ironically, the best qualifies of Speak No Evil (its slow-burn aesthetic, the darker tone) also likely kept it from being a bigger hit. Crowdpleaser Blumhouse titles typically ratchet up the jump scares and have lighter elements to balance out the frights. Even the last James McAvoy movie, Split, had one or two gags in the trailers stemming from the main villain's multiple personalities. 

Speak No Evil is also undeniably feeling the burn of Hollywood putting out a new horror movie on an almost weekly basis. AfrAId, Trap, and Alien: Romulus (among other titles) dropped in 3,000+ theaters each last month. Cuckoo was also around in wide release in August 2014! IFC’s putting one new wide-release horror title out a month. There are lots of options in the marketplace and only so much money from horror geek moviegoers to go around. The days of October 2019, when Countdown was the only new horror-wide release in the marketplace, are long gone. New frightening movies like Longlegs can overperform like crazy if they strike a chord with audiences. However, scary titles aren’t inherently going to make It or The Purge money. That’s true even for the Blumhouse crew, who seemed downright invincible in the late 2010s. 

In its eighth weekend of release, Deadpool & Wolverine kept slicing up big bucks. This frame, the latest Shawn Levy movie grossed $5.2 million. That’s a terrific 26% dip from last weekend. The newest Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster is winding down its North American theatrical run, but it’s already exceeded $620 million. With $621.4 million in the bank, it should surpass the $623 million domestic total of The Avengers very soon.  Crossing $630 million when all is said and done looks to be in the cards.

This weekend also saw the release of a new feature from a bunch of bootlicking fascists. I’m not eager to give this motion picture more straightforward coverage, including in reporting on its box office grosses. Instead, let me remind you Kokomo City is streaming on Paramount+. You can watch every episode of I’m a Virgo on Amazon right this instant. Drive My Car, Paris is Burning, Real Women Have Curves, you can watch these movies on physical media and streaming. We should all support this art every day of the week. That’s especially true when racist garbage can get into 1,500+ domestic movie theater screens while upcoming documentaries like Black Box Diaries and Union will struggle for screens come October. Screw off Nazi punks, to paraphrase Green Room, and let’s move on, shall we?

Speaking of fascists, Reagan grossed another $2.96 million this weekend. That’s a 39% drop from the last frame. Having now grossed $23.3 million, it’s headed for a domestic total just below $30 million. 

Summer 2024 may be over, but Lionsgate's rough box office patch did not stop this weekend. The Killer's Game grossed just $2.6 million this weekend from 2,623 theaters for a disappointing per-theater average of $991. That's the 11th worst domestic opening weekend in history for a movie opening in over 2,500 theaters.  This is the third action-heavy title Lionsgate’s dropped in the span of six weeks (following Borderlands and The Crow). No matter what studio was behind that scheduling move, that’s a bone-headed strategy. You’re oversaturating the market! No wonder people weren’t interested in more bullets and explosions.

Alien: Romulus grossed another $2.4 million, a 39% dip from the last frame. With $101.2 million domestically, this title is only the second Alien feature (following Prometheus) to crack $100+ million domestically. It Ends With Us grossed another $2.02 million this frame, giving it a $144.8 million after six weekends of release. Right behind this feature was another Sony holdover, The Forge. Dropping 33% this weekend, The Forge grossed $2.01 million for a $24.1 million total.

Cue Lady Gaga saying "you guys are still here?" Because the God's Not Dead franchise was back in theaters this weekend with God's Not Dead: In God We Trust. The original God's Not Dead was unquestionably a massive hit back in March 2024. However, none of its sequels have come close to matching its success. Heck, the third entry failed to crack $6 million domestically or 10% of the first movie's North American haul! This weekend, In God We Trust opened to $1.46 million (it grossed $1.82 million since Thursday). Playing in 1,392 theaters courtesy of Fathom Events, In God We Trust had a deeply underwhelming bow. It's bamboozling why these things are still getting made, but as long as financially well-off cishet white people need their martyr complex reinforced, this franchise will keep chugging along.

Twisters is winding down its theatrical run this weekend, but it still grossed another $1.2 million this frame for a $266.3 million gross. Despicable Me 4, meanwhile, accumulated an additional $1.1 million (a 40% drop from the last frame) for a $359.4 million domestic total. DAN DA DAN: First Encounter opened in 610 theaters this weekend and grossed $1.005 million for a $1,648 per theater average. That's nothing outstanding, but it's already the ninth-biggest GKIDS movie ever domestically. The Front Room had a steep plummet this weekend, grossing $427,756, a 73% drop from its opening. After ten days, this box office flop has grossed only $2.67 million.

Another weekend, another arthouse title suffered after going immediately into hundreds of theaters. This weekend's victim was The Critic, which grossed just $200,000 from 556 theaters for a dismal $360 per theater average. Arthouse studios, y'all got to build up these titles up over multiple weeks, not just launch projects in 500+ locations and hope for the best! On the other hand, My Old Ass got off to a swell of $171,743 start at seven locations this weekend. Such a cume means it grossed $24,535 per theater this frame. That's the eighth-largest limited-release opening weekend per theater average in 2024. Here's to hoping the title legs it out when it expands into wide release on September 27th.

IndieWire is reporting that Kevin Smith's newest film, The 4:30 Movie, opened to just $115,000 from 245 theaters, for a terrible per theater average just over $450. Even with that terrible opening, it's already the fifth-biggest self-distributed title ever from Saban Films. Something called Faith of Angels opened in 30 locations this weekend and grossed $65,016. Casa Bonita Mi Amor expanded to 17 locations and grossed $45,630 for a $2,684 per theater average. This documentary has now grossed $78,881 after ten days. Kneecap returned to 114 theaters this frame but only grossed $17,819 for a per theater average of just $156. This Irish feature has now grossed just $1.1 million domestically. Seeking Mavis Beacon fell 6% this weekend despite increasing its theater count to 30 locations. Grossing $12,000, Mavis Beacon scored a per-theater average of only $400. This title's now accumulated $38,033 domestically.

The top ten movies this weekend grossed $86.4 million. That's up 54% from this same frame last year when The Nun II dominated the box office again. However, it’s down 12% from this same weekend in 2019 when It: Chapter Two and Hustlers were ruling the marketplace. Chalk up this gross to the lack of new major studio products in the marketplace beyond Speak No Evil. Over the second weekend of 2018, major mid-budget titles like A Simple Favor and White Boy Rick could mitigate an underwhelming The Predator bow. In September 2016's second weekend, the big new release was the Clint Eastwood drama Sully. That title offered something new in the marketplace compared to the August 2016 box office titans Don't Breathe and Suicide Squad.

Right now, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is killing it, but what else is around to compensate for Speak No Evil underperforming? I’ve talked in the past about how major studios not releasing enough titles (either in quantity or in terms of varied genres) is the biggest problem theaters have right now. The callous disregard Warner Bros., Paramount, Disney, and other entities have (as seen by their shrinking annual theatrical movie slates and unwillingness to make features in all genres) for movie theater owners and especially their employees is frightening. We’re seeing that phenomenon again this weekend.

The marketplace needs more movies and it needs rom-coms, crime thrillers, dramas, all those types of movies, not just horror titles and right-wing propaganda. Only two major studio-wide releases (Paramount's Transformers One and Universal's The Wild Robot) will drop in the rest of September, a disgraceful testament to how major studios capable of giving CEOs exorbitant salaries won’t provide theaters with vitally needed movies. Warner Bros. could give Sweethearts a late September theatrical run, for instance. Instead, it’s going to Max.  

This problem is frightening, but hey, here's some good news to end this report on. September 2024, at the halfway point for the month, has now grossed $352 million, already putting it past September 2022's $323.1 million haul. September 2021's $367.1 million gross is within sight too. Becoming the biggest September ever looks to be out of the cards for September 2024. However, becoming only the sixth September ever to hit $600+ million, seems achievable.