Three years ago, Eternals, a totally new comic book adaptation with no pre-existing fanbase, was tracking for as much as a $100+ million domestic opening bow roughly a month before release. It was only after negative initial reviews broke that anticipation slowed down. Even then, this title still grossed $71 million in its first three days of North American play. Cut to 2024. Venom: The Last Dance, a sequel to two movies that each grossed $85+ million on their respective domestic opening weekends, scraped up a $51 million debut. Deadpool & Wolverine proved superhero movies can still drum up massive box office runs. However, the days of every Marvel and DC Comics adaptation automatically being an event are over.
Among superhero movie domestic debuts, The Last Dance opened just under $6 million better than fellow Sony/Marvel movie Ghost Rider 17 years ago. It also came in behind the North American bows of Green Lantern, The Wolverine, Shazam!, The Lego Batman Movie, and Watchmen. There are at least two silver linings here for Sony. The Last Dance cost a reported $110 million in contrast to the excessively bloated $200 million Joker: Folie a Deux price tag. Meanwhile, The Last Dance actually did great overseas in this frame. Opening to $175 million worldwide, The Last Dance could hit as much as $399 million internationally once its run finishes. Globally, Sony should see a profit on The Last Dance even with this devastating domestic drop-off.
While not a disastrous opening, The Last Dance premiered 41% below Venom: Let There Be Carnage’s bow from three years ago. Part of that was the marketing failure to emphasize a new exciting baddie for Venom to confront. The last film featured his most famous adversary (Carnage) played by an Academy Award-nominated performer (Woody Harrelson). The Last Dance’s trailer emphasized CG aliens and far more obscure comic book baddie Knull (played by an actor whose identity was concealed until the last minute). Losing previous franchise mainstays like Michelle Williams also made The Last Dance seem a bit too disconnected from its predecessors. Plus, the first two Venom titles weren’t exactly beloved motion pictures by audiences.
Who knows how 2025 superhero titles like Superman or The Fantastic Four: First Steps do next year? Those two may be saved by their incredibly famous lead characters. More obscure titles like Thunderbolts*, on the other hand, have lots of work to do to combat domestic indifference to just more superhero movies. God help Kraven the Hunter, the next Sony/Marvel movie. If a third Venom feature can only make $51 million on domestic opening weekend in 2024, then Kraven (which reportedly costs more than The Last Dance?!?) is going to need a box office miracle.
In second place was last weekend's domestic box office champ, Smile 2. Grossing another $9.4 million this frame, Smile 2 eased 59% from its solid debut. Over 10 days, this title has grossed $40.7 million. Clearly, Smile 2 won't be as leggy as its predecessor. However, this should make a pretty penny for Paramount Pictures on a $28 million budget.
The only major new wide release to open against Venom: The Last Dance was award-season hopeful Conclave. In a welcome win for adult dramas on the big screen, Conclave opened to a robust $6.5 million from just 1,753 locations. That means Conclave came in just behind The Forge to score 2024’s second-biggest domestic launch for a movie opening in under 2,000 theaters. Focus Features has had an incredibly rough 2024, with only one new wide release from the studio (The Bikeriders) cracking $10+ million this year. Conclave is a much-needed balm for the indie label. Compared to past Focus titles, Conclave more than doubled the biggest single domestic weekend for The Holdovers. It also outpaced the largest single domestic weekend for The Darkest Hour and opened 8% ahead of On the Basis of Sex’s domestic debut in January 2019.
As studios like Warner Bros. cowardly refuses to grant significant theatrical releases to grounded dramas like Juror #2, Conclave is an important reminder that, yes, more intimate award season fare can still draw a crowd into a theater. I dare say that, in 2024, the same principle applies to making these movies hits as they did in 1994: make them relevant, make them interesting. People don’t come to the movie theater because something’s “important”. They come because it looks interesting to watch. Conclave’s ads emphasizing an inspired plotline (the pope is dead, conspiracy ensues figuring out a replacement) and a tense atmosphere did just that. There were also lots of younger people in my age range at my Thursday night Conclave screening, a sign that this title didn’t just appeal to the 50+ crowd. That’s important for any arthouse picture to have.
It's hard to say how Conclave will hold up in the weeks to come. Expanding immediately into wide release means it’ll be tough to add more theaters in subsequent weeks. Still, if word of mouth is good, there’s a solid chance this becomes only the 36th Focus Features movie ever to clear $25 million domestically.
Next up was The Wild Robot with another terrific weekend-to-weekend hold. Easing just 36%, it added $6.5 million to a domestic haul that now stands at $111.3 million. A domestic total between $130 and $140 million is in the cards for this sleeper hit. After a great wide-release expansion last weekend, A24 ballooned We Live in Time's theater count this frame to a whopping 2,964 locations. One of the widest A24 titles ever, We Live in Time grossed another $4.8 million this frame, a 15% increase from last weekend. With an $11.7 million domestic haul to date, We Live in Time is now the first 2024 limited release to exceed $10 million domestically. If it holds okay in the next two weekends, it might just become only the 14th A24 title ever to crack $20 million in North America.
Terrifier 3 eased 49% this weekend, grossing another $4.7 million. It's no Greatest Showman or Elemental in its weekend-to-weekend holds. However, Terrifier 3 is still showing solid retention for such a brutally graphic movie. The lifetime domestic total of Art the Clown's latest adventure is $44.4 million. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice refuses to die as it eased just 35% this frame to add another $3.5 million. Its domestic haul now stands at a massive $289 million. After that Tim Burton movie, the holdovers get downright frightening. Countless titles had steep drops this weekend as they lost screens to Venom, Conclave, and Time.
However, the latest Sean Baker movie was one holdover that didn’t plummet this weekend. On the contrary, in its second weekend of release, Anora held like a champ. This feature grossed another $867,142 from 34 locations for a $25,504 per theater average. That’s 10% ahead of the second weekend per theater average of Moonlight from October 2016 eight years ago. That's also ahead of the second weekend per theater averages of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Jojo Rabbit. Anora’s performance beating out echoing pre-COVID arthouse breakout hits is deeply encouraging. Ditto breaking into the top ten biggest movies in America this weekend despite being in significantly fewer theaters than its competitors. Distributor Neon may just have a major crossover hit on its hands. Domestically, Anora has already grossed $1.61 million after just ten days of release.
Returning to more worrisome holdover news, Piece by Piece dropped 65% for $720,110 weekend total. It's now grossed $8.83 million domestically. Next up was Transformers One, which grossed $720,000. Dropping 64% from last weekend, this animated spin-off has grossed only $57.9 million to date. Another comic book movie arriving in the marketplace just caused more suffering for Joker: Folie a Deux. This historic box office flop collapsed another 72% this weekend to gross another $600,000. With just $57.8 million after 24 days of release, Folie a Deux is becoming one of the most frontloaded major releases ever at the domestic box office. At least it narrowly surpassed Shazam! Fury of the Gods domestically this weekend? That is the very definition of a minor victory.
The Substance grossed another $605,500 (a 31% dip from the last frame) just before Halloween. One of the year's leggiest wide releases has now grossed $14.5 million domestically. Saturday Night has already run out of steam, as it fell 66% this weekend and grossed just an additional $575,000. Its domestic gross is now at just $8.7 million. Maybe the inevitable movie about the first episode of Mad TV will do better? Distributor Vertical Entertainment is really trying to make a go at being a "real" major indie label. Unfortunately, the debut of Your Monster reaffirmed the studio still has a long way to go in consistently launching wide-release hits. This Melissa Barrera feature opened to just $515,000 from 651 locations for a disappointing $791 per theater average.
Goodrich found no salvation in its second weekend of release, falling 74% to gross another $165,260. Its domestic gross stands at a paltry $1.21 million. Memoir of a Snail began its limited-release run this weekend with a $69,000 bow in five locations for a $13,800 per theater average. IndieWire reports that Dahomey opened to about $18,879 from two theaters for a $9,440 per theater average. Union added four locations and grossed $16,150 for a $2,307 per theater average. After ten days, it's grossed $43,234 domestically. Finally, the excellent documentary Black Box Diaries opened to $7,000 from a single location.
The top ten movies this weekend grossed just $88 million. That's a fittingly underwhelming end to a deeply disappointing October at the domestic box office. Hinging the month on just two comic book movie adaptations (Joker: Folie a Deux and Venom: Let There Be Carnage) was always a misguided idea. However, major studios draining the release slate to avoid competing with these titles especially proved idiotic once both of them underperformer so severely. 11 years ago, mega-hit Gravity flourished alongside Captain Phillips and Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa. Heck, in 2018, Venom and A Star is Born both excelled opening the same weekend.
The marketplace can easily sustain multiple titles and not just a pair of comic book movie would-be hits. Meanwhile, the success of Conclave and We Live in Time shows there’s an appetite for original grounded dramas on the big screen. A modern equivalent to Moneyball or The Girl on the Train from a major studio would make a pretty penny right now. Alas, October 2024 was devoid of such hits. With an over-reliance on sequels and a sparse slate of newcomers, October 2024 has barely cracked $420 million to date. October 2022's $469 million haul looks out of reach. That means this will be the worst post-2020 October domestically of the decade so far.
2024's domestic haul stands at just $6.6 billion to date. The good news for Hollywood is that Thanksgiving is poised to be massive thanks to Gladiator II, Moana 2, and Wicked. Still, relying just on tentpoles can go incredibly haywire for movie theaters…just ask the month that Joker: Folie a Deux was supposed to prop up.