It was another mediocre weekend at the box office, with the top ten grossing just $42.6 million, making it the 4th worst weekend of 2022.
The Woman King finished in first place among all newcomers this weekend with an estimated $19 million. If I can tinker a bit, that number puts it right in line with my forecast from Thursday, when the tracking opened it in the $12 million range. I saw that the reviews were strong and I think people were just intrigued to see Viola Davis in a different type of role. Excellent reviews helped bring people to theaters, while a rare A+ CinemaScore means those who saw it loved it, helping it perform extremely well on Saturday and Sunday! This bodes well for the future of this Maria Bello-produced film.
The well-received horror film Barbarian comes in at number two in its second week of release. The film had a fairly small second-week drop for a horror film of just 40% (horror films are generally front-loaded and have second-week drops in the 60% range) and finished the weekend with $6.3 million. It seems people are hearing that this isn’t your standard horror thriller and are heading to theaters to see what all the fuss is about. Expect this one to draw solid numbers throughout the Halloween season.
Third place went to Pearl. The second film in the newly announced trilogy actually ranked one spot higher than its predecessor in March of this year. Pearl’s grosses are slightly smaller, however, as Pearl opened with $3.1 million, while X opened with $4 million. Fortunately, these movies are cheaply made (like this one for around $1 million), and a $3 million opening already makes Pearl profitable. The third film in the trilogy, Maxxxine, is already in production and is expected to be released sometime in 2023.
Opening in fourth place is Watch Them Run, starring Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan, with an estimated $3.1 million. This is a movie that could have easily been released on a streaming service and probably done well, so I give kudos to the studio for releasing this movie in theaters even if the marketing budget wasn’t very strong. The studio seems to know they’re not working with a major awards contender, just a fun murder mystery with some great actors. This may be one of those titles that disappears quickly at the box office, but will find new life when it hits home video, as it’s a fun little movie with great acting.
Despite finishing the above predictions, The Woman King does not hold the best per-screen average for the weekend. That honor goes to David Bowie’s documentary Moonage Daydream, which was shown on just 170 Imax screens and saw a whopping $7,200 per-theater average, allowing the film to crack the top ten with $1.2 million in ticket sales this weekend. That’s a pretty impressive number and shows that even six years after his death, David Bowie is an icon to be reckoned with.
The rest of the top ten saw the standard tiles we’ve seen over the past few months: Bullet Train rounds out the top five with $2.5 million as it inches ever closer to the $100 million mark. While sixth through ninth spots went to Top Gun: Maverick with $2.18 million; DC League of Super Pets with $2.17 million; The $1.7 million invite, although the unrated version of this film is now available on demand and this may reduce its PG13 box office a bit; and Minions: The Rise of Gru, finishing with $1.3 million.
Next week sees the re-release of the highest-grossing film of all time: Avatar in 3D, Imax 3D and a new 4K High Frame Rate conversion. Personally, I’m not a fan of high frame rates in theatrical movies unless they’re in 3D, as HFR helps smooth out some of the 3D effects. Not in 3D, it tends to make movies look a little more like you shot them with your camcorder than a big budget movie. But we’ll see, James Cameron won the doubt and I bet he’ll make it look amazing.
Also next week sees the release of the highly controversial film Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde and starring Florence Pugh, Harry Styles and Chris Pine. It will be interesting to see how this one performs at the box office, as the behind-the-scenes drama has far outweighed news of the actual film, which may be a good thing, as most reviews so far have been unimpressed with it.
Did you go to the theaters this weekend? Let us know in the comments what you’ve seen and if you think we should see it too, and don’t forget to vote in our Poll where we ask you what your favorite action movies with female leads are.
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