News

A new film stands atop the box-office weekend as The Woman King debuted at number one, displacing last weekend’s top film, Barbarian and sending it to second-place by a margin of 12.7 million.

The Viola Davis starring The Woman King brought in 19.0 million in its first weekend of release, easily claiming the top spot as last weekend’s top film, Barbarian was able to muster a mere 6.3 million in its second weekend of release. Despite the fall to second-place, Barbarian still sports a two-week total of 20.9 million. Claiming third place was the second debut of the weekend, the horror prequel Pearl which took in 3.12 million over the weekend to narrowly best fourth-place finisher See How They Run which brought in 3.1 million in its first weekend of release. These debuts all forced Bullet Train to a fifth-place finish as it brought in 2.5 million in its seventh weekend of release to lift its grand total to 96.4 million.

The late summer/early fall box office woes continue. Though the new releases opened well on their own terms in this post Labor Day weekend, they weren’t enough to keep this from becoming the year’s second worst grossing weekend. With an overall box office of 40.3 million, it comes in only ahead of the 34.9 million weekend of January 28-30, which didn’t have a single new wide release. If there’s a positive spin to put on the weekend, it’s that the newcomers overperformed slightly and the weekend fell less than expected, "only” dropping 28 despite larger than usual drops on the holdovers thanks to inflated grosses last weekend with the National Cinema Day 3 ticket promotion last Saturday. If the coming weeks’ releases such as The Woman King and Don’t Worry Darling hit their targets and then some, it could be enough to keep the box office from falling...

After Ever Happy, the fourth installment of the popular After romance/drama franchise, will gross circa 1.1 million since its release last Wednesday on 1,085 screens. From Fathom Events, this was the top film in the domestic marketplace Sept. 7-8 for a two-day run before dipping to 200+ screens this weekend. Vertical Entertainment will pick up the film’s U.S. theatrical starting September 16.

After Ever Happy opened in Canada Aug 26 (non-Fathom), grossing an estimated 695,000 to date — for a total 1.8 million cume in North America.

This weekend open is a 22 bump over 2021’s After We Fell, the third film based on the ‘After’ book series by Anna Todd and driven by a fan base that calls themselves the Afternators. The first two installments were After (2019) and After We Collided (2020). The fifth film, After Everything, just wrapped production with release date Tbd.

Directed by Castille Landon with screenplay by Sharon Soboil, After Even...

Disney has both the #1 and #2 film this weekend, exactly one year after last achieving that. Sony did it two weeks ago with “The Invitation” and “Bullet Train,” but it is something the House of Mouse did regularly in years when they were the dominant studio for theatrical releases.

Their lead this weekend is more of a default situation than last September when holdover weekends of “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and “Free Guy” held the top two spots. The latter was a Fox-produced title distributed by Disney. This year, both “Barbarian” (also out of Fox) and “Brahmastra Part 1: Shiva” (from Fox Star India) placed as two titles that might not normally be associated with the Burbank studio.

This is likely to be the rock bottom weekend, possibly for years to come. Total grosses amounted to 43 million, second worst for 2022 (1/28-30 lower). That’s only 31 percent of 2019’s post-Labor Day weekend gross.

September just keeps getting worse! With the top ten accumulating just 33.2 million this weekend, it marks the second lowest Weekend take of 2022 behind the weekend of January 28 when Spider-Man: No Way Home took first place in its 7th week of release.

The weekend had potential for a breakout hit with the Stephen King adaptation of Salem’s Lot originally scheduled for release, however Covid related issues saw that film delayed several months. Disney (who acquired Barbarian’s original studio: 20th Century Fox in 2019) saw a horror shaped void in the schedule and pounced on it.

That schedule change may have actually paid off as Barbarian opened better than expected (although our predictions were right on the money) to 10 million. That may not seem like a big victory, however the film was tracking to open in the same underwhelming range as The Invitation with around 7 million, so anything above that is a win.

Another weekend in the box office dry spell has gone by, and while a newcomer has taken No. 1 with 20th Century/New Regency’s “Barbarian” opening to 10 million from 2,340 theaters, industry estimates have overall weekend grosses sinking to 43.8 million.

That would give this September weekend the second-lowest total of any weekend in 2022. The only weekend with a lower amount is the weekend of Jan. 28 with 34 million. It likely will be more than a month before the box office will get a serious rebound with the DC film “Black Adam” coming Oct. 21, though theaters are hoping that films like next weekend’s Sony release of “The Woman King,” and Universal’s “Bros” and “Halloween Ends” can help stem the tide before then.

For now, “Barbarian” leads the charts with an opening slightly above its high single-digit projections, thanks possibly in part to strong critics reviews and a 92 Rotten Tomatoes score. Audience...

Click here to read the full article.

The new horror movie Barbarian overperformed at the domestic box office, where it won the weekend with 10 million in ticket sales from 2,340 theaters.

That puts the well-reviewed film far ahead of an expected 5 million to 6 million opening. Still, the post-Labor Day weekend was more quiet than usual. Not to mention, most of the movie industry is focused on the fall film festivals. Toronto is underway in earnest, with Steven Spielberg’s The Fablemans sparking instant Oscar buzz when making its world premiere at the Canadian fest before hitting theaters in November. Another high-profile Toronto entry, Sony’s The Woman King, debuts next weekend at the box office.

From 20th Century Studios and New Regency, Barbarian did big business in Imax and premium large format screens, which contributed 29 percent of the gross.

The majority of the audience was between the ages of 18 and 34. Ticket...

Saturday numbers are beginning to roll in, and they are looking in line with our predictions from Thursday.

Leading the pack is the new R-rated Horror film Barbarian with a Friday haul of 3.8 Million on its way to around 9 million for the weekend. It is possible this one can hit double digits if crowds turn out tonight, however with a C+ Cinemacscore and a 92 on Rotten Tomatoes, it appears this one is having quite the divide between audiences and critics.

The other new releases for the weekend are the Hindi language Brahmastra Part One: Shiva, which saw a 1.9 Million Friday and is expected to finish the weekend just shy of 5 Million. This is another case of a studio picking the right time to launch a film aimed at a niche audience stateside. With over 8000 screens worldwide, this marks the widest release ever for an Indian film.

Sneaking into the Top...