Night Shift fans come out in full force as Beetlejuice Beetlejuice dominates September 2024's first weekend

The Autumn box office scene kicked off in earnest this weekend. Like so many September’s in the last few years, this season began with a Warner Bros. horror title opening the weekend after Labor Day. After the two It and The Nun titles, Warner Bros. has turned this timeframe into a go-to launchpad for Halloween-friendly movies. That tradition continued with flair this weekend thanks to the strong debut of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Tim Burton’s latest movie scored the second-biggest September domestic opening weekend in history, not to mention becoming only the second September movie ever to secure $100+ million in its first three days of release.

Over its first three days of release, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice grossed a mighty $110 million. Only the first It feature (with a $123 million bow) had a better September North American debut. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is already 49% ahead of the first film's $74.7 million domestic haul. It's also the second-biggest bow ever for director Tim Burton (only behind the $116 million premiere of Alice in Wonderland). This monstrous bow was fueled through a box office performance that was shockingly non-frontloaded for a legacy sequel. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice scored $42 million on Saturday, a robust hold from Friday. That's the kind of hold suggesting strong word-of-mouth as well as a moviegoing audience beyond just devotees to the first movie showing up on opening day.

Like Top Gun: Maverick, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice followed a beloved 1980s movie that hadn’t been diluted with endless sequels. The recent remake The Crow was working in the shadow of multiple direct-to-video sequels and a UPN TV show. Meanwhile, there was a novelty to seeing the Beetlejuice franchise back in theaters. Melding a Beetlejuice follow-up with the Halloween-tinged ambiance of September and Jenna Ortega’s fanbase didn’t hurt either. Expect this one to hold nicely in the weeks to come (especially with no other PG-13 Halloween-themed tentpoles on the immediate horizon). A domestic total of at least $275 million looks assured and a $300+ million North American gross looks quite likely.

Fun fact by the way: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is already the ninth-biggest live-action movie Willem Dafoe has ever appeared in. This Tim Burton legacy sequel looks guaranteed to surpass Platoon to become Dafoe's biggest live-action movie ever that doesn't belong to either the Marvel or DC universes.

With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice taking up most of the box office oxygen, holdovers had heftier weekend-to-weekend drops this frame than in late August. Deadpool & Wolverine finally left the top spot at the domestic box office, grossing another $7.2 million. This smash hit has now grossed $614 million domestically. Reagan had the best hold of any movie in the top ten. It experienced a 32% decline from last weekend for another $5.2 million. After ten days, this project has grossed a solid $18.5 million. A domestic total north of $30 million could be in the cards. Alien: Romulus scared up another $3.9 million for a $97.1 million domestic total. The $100+ million mark is in sight.

Rounding out the top five was It Ends With Us, which grossed $3.7 million. A 47% decline from the last frame, It Ends With Us has now grossed a massive $141.3 million domestically. The Forge had the second-smallest decline of any film in the top ten this frame, easing 36% to gross another $2.9 million. Its 17-day domestic total is now $20.7 million, roughly 17% behind Overcomer at the same point.

Twisters collapsed by 71% this weekend (losing all those 4DX screens is as devastating as any storm). That's no problem for this smash hit, though. It's still grossed a phenomenal $264.6 million domestically after another $2.2 million haul this frame. Blink Twice has exceeded the $20 million mark domestically (with a $20.2 million haul) this weekend. It grossed another $2.1 million, a 56% decline from the the last frame. In ninth place was Despicable Me 4. This summer 2024 juggernaut grossed an additional $1.8 million for a $357.8 million domestic cume. Blink Twice has exceeded the $20 million mark domestically (with a $20.2 million haul) this weekend. It grossed another $2.1 million, a 56% decline from last frame. In ninth place was Despicable Me 4, which grossed an additional $1.8 million for a $357.8 million domestic cume.

Ten years ago this month, A24, for the first time ever, launched a movie immediately into wide release. Rather than bowing a title in three or four theaters and then waiting a few weeks to bring it into 600+ locations, A24 dropped Tusk into 602 theaters (it opened to a dismal $846,831). Since then, A24 has made immediate wide releases a common fixture of the studio's annual release slate. This year alone, A24 has dropped a trio of titles instantly into wide release. That trio includes this weekend's new horror title The Front Room. This new Brandy star vehicle grossed just $1.63 million, a terrible start for a movie opening in 2,095 theaters. It's also one of the weakest wide-release launches on record for A24.  For comparison’s sake, The Front Room opened just $400,000 better than Zola. That's despite that 2021 title burning off demand with a Wednesday launch, opening in 700 theaters, and being one of the first A24 titles released theatrically after COVID shut down theaters.

The Front Room was undoubtedly a cheap movie to make, though, so its losses will be minimal for A24. This arthouse label is now transitioning into becoming more of a standard movie studio. That means you’ll inevitably have some box office bombs in a regular stuffed slate of wide releases. While Apple TV+ reportedly got “embarrassed” that Argylle bombed and pulled Wolfs from theaters, A24 will undoubtedly keep chugging along after The Front Room cratered. Hey, at least it didn't have the worst A24 wide-release opening in history. That record will seemingly belong permanently to Tusk and its $846,831 bow from ten years ago.

Trap got a massive 72% boost this weekend, presumably thanks to getting attached to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at drive-in locations. It grossed another $1.34 million for a $41.6 million domestic total. It's now just $600,000 away from surpassing Lady in the Water's domestic haul from 18 years ago. Afraid fell a steep 71% this weekend, grossing just $1.07 million. Its 10-day domestic haul is a measly $6.2 million. 1992 didn't fare much better with a 68% decline and a $450,000 domestic haul. That Tyrese Gibson movie has now grossed just $2.5 million. The Crow lost 2,456 theaters in its third weekend of release. That's the 11th biggest theater drop in history and ninth biggest ever for a movie that didn't simultaneously drop on streaming. After losing nearly all its theaters, The Crow plummeted 93% this weekend. Such a decline meant it only grossed $127,000 for a dismal $9.2 million domestic total.

Between the Temples added $186,619 in its third weekend of release, enough for a $1.81 million domestic total. Sing Sing fell 51% this weekend to gross another $105,672. Playing at 92 theaters, it took in $1,149 per theater. This is now its ninth consecutive weekend of scoring a $1,000+ per theater average. Let’s talk about this movie for a second. With a reported $2.56 million domestic haul, is the fifth-biggest movie of 2024 domestically to never reach wide release. It's also the biggest movie of 2024 to never play in 200+ theaters. That's all well and good but a $2.56 million domestic haul after nine weeks and lots of hype still isn't an ideal box office run. A24 is about to drop a lot of new buzzy dramas into the marketplace (A Different Man, We Live in Time, The Brutalist, Queer). This distributor won’t be able to tend to Sing Sing forever. Heck, the studio already reduced its theater count by 50% this frame.

The incredibly awkward Sing Sing release strategy (which entailed things like doing away with a planned August 2nd wide release expansion) has been fascinating and frustrating to watch. This is one of the year’s best movies and general audiences are clearly like what they see when they finally watch this movie. However, Sing Sing’s box office haul could clearly be much greater if A24 could figure out some coherency to its release strategy. Without a clear plan in sight, the buzz surrounding Sing Sing can’t grow and get audiences to the theater.

Red Rooms opened from Utopia this weekend. It grossed a disappointing $40,295 from 50 locations for a per-theater average of $806. Shaun of the Dead's Dolby Theatre re-release fell 95% this weekend to gross another $31,000 for a $14.3 million domestic total. Tokyo Cowboy showed promise in its second weekend. It grossed $29,019 from two locations for a $14,510 per theater average and $55,179 10-day domestic total. The new documentary Casa Bonita Mi Amor grossed a terrific $21,750 from a single theater. Seeking Mavis Beacon, meanwhile, expanded to four locations and grossed $15,168. Its per-theater average this frame was $3,792 and its 10-day domestic total is $24,801.

The top ten movies this weekend grossed $139 million, nearly all of that coming just from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice's historic bow. That's handily the second biggest domestic September weekend in history. This frame's only behind the $154.7 million weekend gross of the September 2017 frame when the first It ruled the box office. This is an especially welcome development given how dismal September 2021 and 2022 were at the domestic box office. This three-day weekend alone already matched 42% of September 22's dismal $323.1 million monthly haul.

Given the hefty release slate of major September 2024 titles ahead (namely through new animated family movies like Transformers One and The Wild Robot), could September 2024 beat September 2017's $698.5 million haul to become the biggest September ever domestically? That could be a longer shot, only because September 2017 had five weekends to draw box office grosses from. September 2024 only has four. Plus, other newcomers this month like Speak No Evil, Megalopolis, and The Killer's Game don't look like breakout hits in the making. Still, this spectacular kick-off to September 2024 is keeping the box office momentum of the last three months going nicely. For the sake of movie theater owners and employees everywhere, let’s hope this hot box office streak continues for the rest of autumn.