Summer has come to a close. Time to put away the pool toys and pull out the Jack-o-Lanterns. Before we bid adieu to Brat summer, though, we’ve got one last summertime box office weekend to break down! This final summer 2024 frame saw Deadpool & Wolverine remaining atop the box office in its sixth weekend of release. Its fifth overall time atop the domestic box office, grossed another $15.1 million this frame, an outstanding 17% dip from last weekend. It's now amassed a gargantuan $599.5 million domestically. On Labor Day, Deadpool & Wolverine will exceed $600 million. What else is there to say? This Marvel Studios title is a massive success and may still surpass the $623 million domestic haul of The Avengers before it closes out its North American theatrical run.
Also, yes dear reader, the header image of this box office report is not from Deadpool & Wolverine. I just felt like we'd used so many images from this movie that it was time to highlight another lesser-known Hugh Jackman feature: Bad Education. It's so great and Jackman's outstanding in it, go watch it, it's on Max.
In its third weekend of release, Alien: Romulus fell 43% for another $9.3 million and an $88 million 17-day domestic total. This one should quickly exceed $100 million by mid-September. That would make it only the second Alien movie ever to crack that threshold. For a 45-year-old franchise, Romulus has proven Alien has lots of gas in the left in the tank. In its fourth frame, It Ends with Us grossed another $7.42 million, a 36% drop from the last frame. That means It Ends with Us has grossed $133.7 million after 24 days of domestic release. $150+ million may be just out of reach for this title in North America, but this project is still going to wind up with just over $145 million on a $20 million budget. This is a ridiculously profitable enterprise.
You might be wondering at this point "Why are we only talking about holdovers? Where are the new movies?" Believe it or not, six new titles opened in wide release this weekend. None of them left much of an impression. Reagan was the most lucrative of the bunch with $7.4 million. Not a massive haul, but a significantly better opening weekend haul than other right-wing-skewing movies from this summer (like Sound of Hope or The Firing Squad).
Historically, it's been tough to sell movies about presidents, even fictional ones (hello Man of the Year!). Even back in the 90s, moviegoers were more interested in escapist fare than just seeing characters or parallels to real-world politicians they're inundated with one the news. This explains the lower domestic bows for titles like The Contender or Nixon. Reagan opening roughly 30% better than fellow recent indie political period piece Chappaquiddick, then, is a minor accomplishment. This biopic about this openly racist man whose cruel approach to the AIDS crisis caused "a genocide of neglect" was easily the weekend highest-grossing wide release newcomer.
Twisters returned to 4DX theaters this weekend after such immersive screenings went viral over the blockbuster's opening weekend. Audiences lined up in droves to experience actual droplets and wind splashing on their face in all the disaster movie chaos, with the movie taking another $7.16 million this frame. That's a 17% increase from last weekend and brings Twisters to a massive $258 million domestic haul.
In its second weekend of wide release, Blink Twice fell 36% to gross another $4.68 million. After 10 days of North American play, it's now taken $15.3 million. A $20+ million domestic total looks to be in reach, not too shabby for an original darker thriller that cost $20 million to make. This would also make it the fifth Amazon MGM Studios title to clear $20 million in the last eight months. The Forge held sturdily this frame with another $4.6 million. That's a 30% dip from last weekend, exactly on par with the 30% second-weekend dip of the last Alex Kendrick directorial effort Overcomer (which also opened the weekend before Labor Day weekend). With $14.4 million after ten days, The Forge is headed for a domestic finish just above $25 million.
Despicable Me 4 dipped only 4% this weekend, good enough for another $4.08 million in its ninth weekend of release. It's also up roughly 47% from Despicable Me 2's ninth weekend gross, which also fell over Labor Day weekend. Despicable Me 4 now has a $354.1 million domestic total, putting it just $500,000 behind Despicable Me 2’s domestic haul at the same point. If it doesn't plummet in the next two weekends, Despicable Me 4 might have a shot at dethroning Minions: The Rise of Gru's $370.2 million domestic gross to become the biggest Despicable Me movie ever in North America. Even if it just misses that, this one's still secured a gigantic box office gross.
Sony/Blumhouse title AfrAId opened to just $3.7 million this weekend. That’s a dismal bow on several fronts. For one thing, that's the ninth-worst opening weekend in history for a feature opening in 3,000+ theaters. Among Blumhouse Production releases, AfrAId came in behind nearly all prior titles from the outfit that opened in wide release. It opened beneath Unfriended: Dark Web, The Belko Experiment, and The Green Inferno. Heck, it only narrowly outpaced Freaky’s $3.6 million bow and that title opened in November 2020, when so many domestic theaters were closed because of COVID-19!
A low-budget horror movie flopping over Labor Day weekend is about as much news as the startling development that the sky is blue. However, it's worth noting that this feature might indicate...not necessarily "fatigue" but some cracks in Blumhouse's armor. Night Swim, Imaginary, and now AfrAId all came in under expectations in 2024 even with their low budgets. The Blumhouse formula of combining seemingly trustworthy entities (a pool, a doll best friend, an A.I., etc.) with a "normal" upper-middle-class family in suburban confines may need some shaking up. Perhaps more theatrical Blumhouse movies focused on a greater array of protagonists, like teenagers, elderly people, or single folks? The biggest horror hits come about from totally unexpected places. Nobody thought Longlegs, The Blair Witch Project, or even past Blumhouse sensations like Paranormal Activity would be as big as they were. AfrAId's ads mimicking M3gan, The Invisible Man, and Night Swim just ran against that ethos.
Granted, Blumhouse did have its biggest movie ever last October with Five Nights at Freddy’s, so why would they listen to a bimbo lesbian like me? Still, the low box office returns of AfrAId and the fact that the last few Blumhouse movies, judging from their trailers, all seem to take place in the same neighborhood should give the studio some pause. There are only so many horror brands like Freddy’s and Halloween for Blumhouse to exploit…sooner or later the label will need to confront a clear financial problem with its original movies.
Per Deadline, Coraline rounded out the top ten this frame with another $3.15 million (a 38% dip from last weekend). That brings its 2024 haul up to $29.4 million and its lifetime domestic cume to a massive $112.2 million. This re-release is just the box office gift that keeps on giving. Since 2006, nearly every summertime Pixar movie (Lightyear is the only exception I can think of) has drastically re-expanded its theater count over Labor Day weekend. Inside Out 2 continued that phenomenon by returning to 2,660 locations. That was enough to gross another $2.77 million, a 36% increase over its last frame. The year's biggest movie has now grossed $650 million domestically. That makes it only the 11th movie in history to crack $650 million domestically without adjusting for inflation. What a remarkable feat for the summer’s biggest movie to secure over summer 2024’s final frame.
The best thing one can say about The Crow’s second weekend of release is that it didn’t fall as badly as Morbius or Borderlands. This box office flop still plummeted 61% for another $1.8 million and a dismal 10-day domestic total of $8.1 million. This one will struggle to hit $12 million domestically, an absolutely abhorrent feat.
1992 only opened to $1.36 million at 875 locations. 1992 closes out a dismal summer for Lionsgate. Hey, at least it performed better than fellow new wide-release City of Dreams, which only grossed $1.27 million this frame while playing in 774 theaters. City of Dreams distributor Roadside Attractions, for the love of God, goes back to releasing smaller-scale arthouse titles that debuted in limited releases. Launching these more mainstream commercial features immediately into wide release is not working for you, as seen by the outfit's slew of flops this year. No three-day figures have been reported for sports drama You Gotta Believe, though Deadline reports that the title is projected to make $900,000 for the four-day weekend. Let's say that amounts to roughly a $720,000 three-day frame. Not a great debut, but You Gotta Believe is at least on track to become only the 16th title from distributor Well Go USA to exceed $1 million domestically.
Shaun of the Dead returned to Dolby Cinema locations this weekend and grossed a robust $600,000 from 133 locations for a $4,511 per theater average. Shaun of the Dead has now grossed $14.1 million in its lifetime domestic cume. Strange Darling fell 55% in its second weekend of wide release, grossing $518,748 for a 10-day domestic total of $2.3 million. Now we come to the final new wide release of the weekend, the Casey Affleck/Laurence Fishburne sci-fi thriller Slingshot. Opening in 845 locations, Slingshot flopped with just $485,282. That's one of 2024's worst wide-release debuts, with only (exempting 2024 re-release of Pixar movies) 12 other movies from this year opening in 600+ locations having worse debuts. One of those titles was another Bleecker Street distributed feature, Treasure. Again, like Roadside, Bleecker Street needs to concentrate on limited-release arthouse titles, not commercial-wide releases.
Between the Temples took in $418,636 from 304 locations this weekend, bringing its 10-day domestic haul to $1.39 million. Not a sleeper smash hit, but it's doing alright as a late-summer indie. Credit where credit is due, it looks like it'll become only the seventh Sony Pictures Classics title to hit $2+ million domestically since the pandemic began despite never playing in wide release.
Didi dipped just 31% this weekend to gross another $326,000, bringing it up to a solid $4.2 million cume. Does it have enough gas in the tank to get the $789,000 it needs to become only the fifth limited-release title of 2024 to exceed $5 million domestically? It's a coin toss right now. Sing Sing, meanwhile, stayed put in 191 theaters and grossed another $213,501, an 11% dip from last weekend. This critical darling has grossed $1.96 million. CatVideoFest 2024, in its fifth weekend of release, shot up 88% to gross $85,225 for a fantastic $697,005 domestic total.
Good One expanded into 93 locations in its fourth weekend, grossing $78,666 for a per-theater average of $846. Over its domestic run, it's now amassed $244,286. Tokyo Cowboy opened to $21,010 from two theaters for a $10,505 per theater average while Seeking Mavis Beacon debuted in a single theater this frame and grossed $9,062. In its third weekend of release, Mountains expanded to 10 locations but dipped under $1,000 in its per theater average. It grossed just $7,301 this weekend for a $730 per theater average. It's doubtful this one expands further, meaning its domestic run has basically stalled out at $31,247.
The top ten movies this weekend grossed $66.3 million, Shockingly, this isn't the lowest-grossing weekend of summer 2024, a record Labor Day frame nearly always secure in the summer season. This frame exceeded the $60.28 million haul of May 31-June 2, when The Garfield Movie topped the domestic box office in its second weekend. Shockingly, this weekend only came in $1.7 million behind the top gross of summer 2024's first weekend, when The Fall Guy opened to underwhelming numbers. As for the whole month, August 2024 made just over $890.5 million domestically, making it the eighth-biggest August on record. Summer 2024 also narrowly exceeded $3.625 billion. That’s down 10% from last summer, but it’s not a bad haul considering the dismal start to the season.
Now we move forward to autumn, where titles like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Joker: Folie au Deux, The Wild Robot, and others will all hope to drive ticket sales to great heights. Given how dreadfully empty the last few September’s have been, September 2024 (with its crowded slate of new releases) at least looks like it has the potential to go the distance at the box office. Fare thee well summer 2024, a season of incredibly erratic box office performances.