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SATURDAY AM UPDATE: Refresh for chart and more analysis Super Bowl weekend, despite its damper on Sunday business, used to be a box office frame that could still yield results, even for films aimed at dudes. Like in 2015, when the sixth weekend of American Sniper drummed up $30.7 million, or in 2020, when the third weekend of Bad Boys for Life did $17.6M.
Last year’s Super Bowl weekend totaled $52.6M per Box Office Mojo, led by Warner Bros’ Magic Mike’s Last Dance with a an $8.3M opening. This year we’re lower with $40M, -24% from a year ago. That’s also the lowest weekend we’ve had year to date at the box office for 2024.
This Super Bowl weekend, we have Apple Original Films’ poorly received Matthew Vaughn-directed Argylle doing $6.6M, down 62% in Weekend 2, for what will be a 10-day result of $28.9M at 3,605 theaters.
Focus Features is trying to counterprogram with the Zelda Williams teenage genre comedy Lisa Frankenstein, aimed at young women and arthouse audiences. Booked at 3,143 theaters with a $4M three-day, it’s not exactly Mean Girls, more under the start of another teenage comedy aimed at highbrow crowds: 2019’s Booksmart, which debuted to $6.9M at 2,505 theaters.
Lisa Frankenstein, scripted by Oscar winner Diablo Cody, follows a girl who has a crush on a dead person. After a set of horrific circumstances brings him back to life, the two embark on a journey to find love, happiness — and a few missing body parts. The movie, which didn’t win over critics at 51% Rotten, stars Cole Sprouse and Kathryn Newton. RT audience score is better at 77%; ditto CinemaScore which gave it a B.
Women showed up at 58% with 69% of those attending between 18-34 and the biggest demo (no surprise) being 18-24 at 35%. Diversity demos were 57% Caucasian, 22% Hispanic and Latino, 7% Black and 8% Asian. Most of the movie’s business is in the East, South Central and West with the AMC Burbank the top grossing venue for the title with close to $15K since Thursday night.
Friday’s $1.74M take for the pic includes $700,000 from previews Thursday night. By the way, that $4M was at the low end of tracking estimates, which were between $4M-$6M. The pic is cheap at $13M before P&A. Focus Features will be fine.
The fifth weekend of Amazon MGM’s Jason Statham movie The Beekeeper ranks third with a Friday of $962K, a three-day of $3.4M at 3,057 theaters, -35%, and running total of $54.6M. That result is ahead of such Statham action titles Crank ($28M), The Mechanic ($29M), all three Transporter movies, and The Expendables 3 ($39M). But it’s a far jump past The Meg 2 ($83M), the next solo benchmark for the British star.
Warner Bros’ Wonka is spotting fourth place with $3.1M at 2,764, -33%, in Weekend 9 after an $775K Friday, which will put its running stateside total at $205.2M by Sunday. At the domestic B.O., it’s Timothée Chalamet’s highest-grossing movie to date.
Fifth place goes to Illumination/Universal’s Migration, which in Weekend 8 is spotting $3M, -28%, for a $110.1M running total at 2,679 locations.
