Smile 2 is a hit in an otherwise frown-inducing October 2024 box office frame

Another weekend, another horror sequel topping the domestic box office. Smile 2 grossed a perfectly fine $23 million over opening weekend. I once thought Smile 2 would produce a Pitch Perfect 2 situation where a follow-up just left its predecessor's debut in the dust. That didn’t come to pass, but a $23 million debut (up 4% over the first one’s opening weekend) is still nothing to sniff at. Plus, so many sequels this year and in 2023 have flopped that Paramount Pictures must be doing cartwheels Smile 2 had any kind of increase on the first movie.

Paramount’s marketing for Smile 2 wisely emphasized a brand new cast for this outing so that the follow-up wasn’t just perceived as a rehash of what came before it. With posters and a trailer emphasizing a fresh pop star protagonist, Smile 2 crooned its way onto people’s radars. Intriguingly, Smile 2 also wasn’t terribly frontloaded on a day-to-day basis over the weekend, especially for a horror sequel. That bodes well for its word of mouth in the weeks to come and could suggest a North American total as high as $65-70 million. Not too shabby for a $29 million budgeted sequel. Lots of Paramount executives grinning over those numbers this morning.

The Wild Robot is really hitting its stride at the domestic box office, as the hit Chris Sanders directorial effort grossed $10.1 million this weekend. That's a meager 28% dip from last weekend, an especially impressive feat considering the last frame was a holiday weekend. Also, The Wild Robot became available on premium-video-on-demand services this past week, yet its box office run kept chugging without a problem. With $101.7 million in the bank, The Wild Robot still has lots of room to soar at the box office.

Somehow, Terrifier 3 didn’t fall off a cliff after its extraordinary opening weekend. Instead, it fell a measly 51% to add $9.3 million to a domestic haul that now stands at $36.2 million. Understandable concerns this would be a total one-week wonder have proven ill-founded. Terrifier 3 will now have no trouble crossing $50 million domestically and could reach $55 million when all is said and done. On a $2 million budget, this movie is truly printing money for all involved.

In its seventh weekend of release, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice kept on chugging with another $5 million. That's a tiny 32% decline from the last frame. This blockbuster has now grossed $283.9 million domestically. One more solid weekend-to-weekend hold and this thing's getting past $300 million domestically. That would make it only the 18th movie to exceed $300 million in North America after March 2020.

We Live in Time expanded into wide release to terrific results, grossing $4.1 million from just 985 theaters. That’s a per-theater average of $4,250, an extremely strong figure. A romantic drama starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, We Live in Time’s innately younger appeal already gave it a leg up on other fall 2024 arthouse titles like The Apprentice and Megalopolis aimed exclusively at the older crowd. Plus, the marketing around the title, though generating buzz for a very sad movie, didn’t just lean on We Live in Time being “acclaimed” or “important”. Memes about a weird-looking horse on the movie’s poster or Garfield posing with a Pugh cut-out on a red carpet got people talking about We Live in Time. That’s how you get people’s attention for a non-franchise arthouse title!

Another weekend, another dreadful drop from Joker: Folie a Deux. Grossing just $2.18 million this frame, this Joker sequel plummeted another 69%. With just $56.4 million after 17 days of release and Venom: The Last Dance about to take over as the big comic book movie in town, Folie a Deux will struggle to hit $60 million domestically. 

Piece by Piece dipped 46% this weekend to gross another $2.1 million. With $7.6 million after ten days, there’s a chance this becomes only the second documentary of 2024 to exceed $10 million. That’s the best one can say for this middling performance of this title. Transformers One dropped another 47% to gross an additional $2 million. It’s now grossed just $56.6 million domestically. Saturday Night eased 45% in its second weekend of wide release to gross another $1.8 million. With $7.6 million in the bank, it’s a coin toss at this point if this gets past $10 million domestically. 

The Nightmare Before Christmas fell 53% this weekend to gross another $1.12 million. This beloved animated feature has now amassed $92.4 million domestically over its various re-releases. The Substance's outstanding box office run continued on as it dipped just 21% this weekend. Grossing another $878,611, this sleeper hit now has $13.38 million to its name. Returning to Halloween-themed Disney movies. Hocus Pocus, opened to $841,000 from 1,480 locations. Its lifetime domestic gross is now $49.8 million. 

The Apprentice dropped 58% this weekend, grossing just another $680,000 for a disastrous $3.25 million 10-day domestic total. The Mouse House brought Deadpool & Wolverine back into 1,525 theaters this frame. Presumably, this was done to get it past Barbie's domestic haul in this particular frame. Dipping 13% and grossing another $679,000 (for a $445 per theater average), Deadpool & Wolverine did eke past Barbie by a couple of thousand dollars. This Shawn Levy movie has now grossed $636.296 million to Barbie's $636.238 million. That makes Deadpool & Wolverine the biggest live-action movie domestically since Avatar: The Way of Water almost two years ago.

Everyone’s favorite independent distributor was back this weekend…Ketchup Entertainment! This time, Ketchup launched the Michael Keaton/Mila Kunis movie Goodrich. This thing’s flying so under the radar that Keaton didn’t even mention Goodrich while hosting Saturday Night Live over its opening weekend. Lackluster marketing (what was with this poster, what plot is it trying and failing to communicate?) and a lack of buzz capsized this title. Goodrich opened to only $625,000 at 1,055 locations for a $592 per theater average. Better luck next time Ketchup Entertainment. Watch me make all these jokes now and then these Ketchup folks launch some sleeper hit YA-novel adaptation in 2025. Stranger things have happened in Hollywood…

If you thought limited releases might be dead and buried after the last few weeks of arthouse titles flopping at the box office, writer/director Sean Baker would like a word with you. His buzzy feature Anora opened to a spectacular $540,000 at just six theaters for a $90,000 per theater average. That's the third biggest per-theater average since COVID closed down theaters, only behind Licorice Pizza and Asteroid City's opening weekend. However, it's not just a staggering haul among post-March 2020 releases. That's a per-theater average that would’ve been among the very best (if not the best) in 2018, 2017, 2011, or 2010. Even in pre-COVID times, Anora would be off to a rocking start.

This is also significantly ahead in per theater average of the opening weekends of the last two October Neon releases, Triangle of Sadness and Anatomy of a Fall. Anora also blew away the opening weekends of all prior Sean Baker movies, including doing four times The Florida Project's domestic bow seven years ago. It's still difficult to say whether or not Anora can cross over into the mainstream. Maybe this will be another Steve Jobs, Beau is Afraid, or The Master where a massive limited-release opening weekend business fails to translate into general audience interest. For now, though, this is a staggering bow and a tremendously promising development for arthouse theaters. Here’s to hoping Anora is the start of several hit titles for indie theaters over the next two months.

Some of the worst wide-release launches of 2024 have one unexpected element in common: distributor Bleecker Street. On the cusp of this label’s tenth anniversary, Bleecker Street’s penchant for launching arthouse titles in 600+ locations immediately has resulted in truly dismal bows. This weekend, Guy Maddin’s Rumours opened in 630 theaters and grossed $314,083 for a $499 per theater average. There have only been five worse 2024 wide-release opening weekends this year, one of them being Bleecker Street title Treasure. How bizarre to launch such an idiosyncratic and decidedly unmainstream title in 600+ theaters right away. Bleecker Street, IFC, Sony Classics, y’all need a “come to Jesus” moment on how you launch arthouse titles.

Speaking of arthouse studios that keep sending indie movies out to die, Roadside Attractions dropped Exhibiting Forgiveness in 774 theaters this weekend. Remember when I said only five 2024 movies had worse wide-release debuts than Rumours? Forgiveness is one of those five movies. It grossed a dismal $275,000 for a $355 per theater average. Exhibiting Forgiveness is a really good movie with terrific performances, but it's also a heavier title dealing with weighty subject matter about trauma and familial abuse. It's not the kind of title you immediately put into hundreds of theaters. This needed a more delicate rollout which Roadside Attractions failed to provide.

It’s honestly becoming maddening to see these major arthouse labels keep adhering to this release style while living up to the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again while hoping for a different result.

Look Back grossed another $92,892 this weekend for a $1.83 million domestic total while It Ends With Us inexplicably returned to 433 theaters this weekend and grossed just $55,000 for a $127 per theater average. Sony, you're not getting this movie past $150 million domestically (it’s grossed $148.4 million to date). It's fine. It’s already super profitable. Stop trying to make it happen. Union opened to $10,000 in one theater. The Line also opened in a single theater this weekend, though it grossed a more unpromising $8,487.

This weekend’s top ten grossed a measly $60 million, a dismal haul for a late October weekend. For God's sake, that's barely better than the first weekend of October 1997 when Kiss the Girls debuted in theaters (and that's before taking inflation into account!) Smile 2 and Terrifier 3 can only lift up the marketplace so much, we need more movies from major studios. New wide releases like Rumours and Goodrich from smaller indie labels with minimal marketing spending or buzz won’t cut it. We need a greater array of titles. Thankfully, the final two months of the year (particularly this impending Thanksgiving frame) have some really promising box office potential. 

Still, that won’t save this October, which has only grossed a little over $300 million domestically to date. With Venom: The Last Dance ticket sales currently trending more towards Ant-Man numbers than Venom: Let There Be Carnage figures, it’s doubtful October 2024 will end with a big blowout saving the box office. Expect October 2024 to struggle to match the $469 million of October 2022. If this month comes under that figure (it likely will), this will be the worst post-2020 October yet at the domestic box office. Thanks a lot, Joker: Folie a Deux bombing, but also thanks to Hollywood studios refusing to counterprogram against this Todd Phillips directorial effort. Because of these severe miscalculations, the box office marketplace is suffering and, most importantly, movie theater employees are feeling the pain. Let’s cling to some hope that maybe the final weekend of October 2024 can bring more treats than tricks to the box office.