Box office: ‘Longlegs’ stretches ahead of expectations, as ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ crash-lands
The fun thing about the box office is that it always has the potential to throw a few surprises our way, and that’s exactly what happened on this hot and humid mid-July weekend. Read on for the weekend box office report.
Universal’s animated sequel, “Despicable Me 4,” remained in the top spot at the box office this weekend with an estimated $44.7 million, down 40% from its 4th of July opening weekend, bringing its domestic total to $211.1 million. It added another $88 million internationally in 78 markets for an overseas total of $226.7 million and $437.8 million globally. It has also become the first animated franchise to reach $5 billion globally with six movies to date and a third “Minions” movie just announced for summer 2027.
The big surprise of the weekend had to be Oz Perkins‘s eerie serial killer thriller “Longlegs” starring Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage, which received great reviews with 87% on Rotten Tomatoes ahead of its release by NEON into 2,500 theaters. With a lot of intrigue and buzz from the studio’s innovative and enigmatic marketing campaign, the movie brought in $3 million in Thursday and earlier previews and $10 million on Friday (including previews). It ended up opening in second place with an estimated $22.6 million for the weekend, well ahead of even the most optimistic projections.
Earlier this year NEON had its biggest opening weekend with Sydney Sweeney‘s “Immaculate” with just $5.3 million, but “Longlegs” has destroyed that and established a new record weekend for the studio. Also of note is the fact that “Longlegs” is already NEON’s third-highest grossing release after just a few days.
The “C+” CinemaScore given by audiences to “Longlegs” is slightly unnerving for the movie’s chances of having (sorry) long legs, but it has become common for horror films to be rated less highly by audiences than by critics.
Disney-Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” continues to do big business, as it officially became Pixar’s highest-grossing movie ever this past week. This weekend the animated sequel added another $20.8 million domestically, down just 32% to take third place with its domestic total at $572.6 million so far.
Paramount Pictures’ “A Quiet Place: Day One” made $11.8 million in its third weekend, down 43%, as it brought its domestic total to $116.2 million, still a ways away from the $160 million made by “A Quiet Place Part II” in 2021. It added another $10.4 million overseas this weekend to bring its global total to $220.7 million.
Even with the A-list casting of Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, Greg Berlanti‘s historical rom-com “Fly Me to the Moon” failed to capitalize on early previews and semi-decent reviews, with 67% on Rotten Tomatoes. Sony released the reported $100 million Apple Studios production into 3,356 theaters, the widest new release of the weekend, but it ended up making just $4.5 million on Friday including $878k from earlier previews, and then an estimated $10 million over the weekend. It received a better “A-” CinemaScore, and word-of-mouth could help it hold up as counterprogramming against upcoming offerings. Overseas, it added another $9 million for $19 million globally.
Although Will Smith and Martin Lawrence‘s action-comedy “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” was finally bumped out of the top five, it still managed to bring in $4.4 million (down 34%) to take sixth place. It has grossed $184.9 million domestically so far, so it’s still behind “Bad Boys for Life” with a number of big releases competing for business in coming weeks.
Earlier this week chapter two of Kevin Costner‘s Western epic was pulled from the release schedule, and that did few favors for “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1,” which lost almost 750 theaters and dropped to seventh place with $2.4 million, down 55% from last weekend. So far, it has grossed just $27 million domestically, not a great start for a planned series of movies.
“MaXXXine” took a massive plunge in its second weekend, dropping 69% to eighth place with $2.1 million to bring its domestic total to $11.8 million, which is just ahead of what Ti West and Mia Goth‘s “X” grossed in 2022.
“The Lion King” received a 30th anniversary re-release into 1,330 theaters ahead of the Barry Jenkins-directed live action prequel in December, and it just managed to squeeze into the top 10 with $1.1 million, averaging $812 per theater. (As with other recent Disney re-releases, this has been available to watch on Disney+ for years, which probably didn’t help.)
Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur‘s romantic drama “Touch” was released into 316 theaters by Focus Features, where it grossed an estimated $447,000, averaging less than $1,500 per location.
A24 has taken an interesting tack with the Colman Domingo prison film “Sing Sing” releasing it almost a year after it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, but only into four theaters, where it made $137,000, averaging $34,000 per theater. Plans are for it to get a nationwide release on August 2, but we’ll have more about the movie — currently a predicted frontrunner to win Best Picture — in the next week.
Luke Gilford‘s “National Anthem,” starring Charlie Plummer and Eve Lindley, also opened in four theaters, but only brought in $42,000 (averaging $10,600 per location); that drama is going to expand into over 200 theaters this coming Friday.
Most players in the Gold Derby box office game predicted that “Despicable Me 4” would stay in first place with between $25 and $50 million, but only five players had “Longlegs” opening in second place, so that’s the highest number possible for perfect scores.
There were 52 players who got perfect scores in the July 5 game with “Max” coming out ahead in terms of points with 80,230 with other leaderboard regulars “Garney” and “MellowDrama” right behind, all of them putting their Super Bets on “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” for fifth place.
On Friday Universal will open the disaster epic “Twisters,” starring Glenn Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones, and you can read more about that in Gold Derby’s weekend preview on Wednesday.
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