Box office: ‘Smile 2’ barely tops 2022 original; ‘Anora’ has best limited opening in 16 months
It wasn’t an exciting weekend overall at the box office, but Sean Baker and his new film “Anora” sparked a fire in limited release with the best platform opening in over a year. Read on for the weekend box office report.
The big release this weekend was Paramount Pictures’ horror sequel “Smile 2,” opening in 3,619 theaters after building up strong reviews with 83% on Rotten Tomatoes. The original “Smile” (2022) was right behind it in terms of reviews, and it opened with $22.6 million, going on to $105.9 million domestic and even more overseas. Because of that huge success, “Smile 2” was expected to do better, but it just barely surpassed the opening of the original.
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First, “Smile 2” racked up $2.5 million in Thursday previews, leading to a $9.5 million on Friday, including those previews. It ended up making an estimated $23 million over the three-day weekend, which is only slightly higher than the opening for the first movie. “Smile 2” also received a “B” CinemaScore from audiences, which was also better than the original movie’s “B-” CinemaScore, so we’ll have to see how that carries over with another big sequel opening next weekend.
SEE 2024 box office hits: Every movie that made more than $100 million
DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot” took second place with $10.1 million, a 28% drop from last weekend to bring its domestic total over the $100 million mark with $101.7 million. Overseas, it added another $23.2 million in 76 theaters for a worldwide total of $196 million.
The unrated indie horror hit “Terrifier 3” continued to capitalize on buzz and word-of-mouth for a second weekend of $9.3 million, a respectable 51% drop, to take third place with $36.2 million grossed in North America so far. That’s compared to the $10.9 million domestic total for “Terrifier 2” back in 2022, so you can bet good money that filmmaker Damien Leone is already planning a fourth film.
Warner Bros’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” starring this weekend’s “Saturday Night Live” host Michael Keaton, continued to do well with a seventh weekend take of $5 million (down 32%) to bring its domestic total to $284 million. It’s the biggest hit of the fall movie season so far.
A24 expanded the John Crowley-directed drama “We Live in Time,” starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, nationwide into 995 theaters on Friday after all. After bringing in $500k in Thursday previews, it earned an estimated $4.2 million to take fifth place with $4.5 million grossed so far.
Continuing its terrible run at the box office, Warner Bros’ “Joker: Folie à Deux” lost 1,245 theaters in its third weekend as movie theaters could not get rid of the Todd Phillips comic book sequel fast enough. It took another massive plunge, down 69% to sixth place with $2.2 million for a domestic total of $56.4 million. It’s still doing better overseas with another $14.7 million this weekend for an international total of $135.5 million and $192 million worldwide.
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The Pharrell Williams doc “Piece by Piece” took seventh place with $2.1 million and $7.6 million in its first 10 days of release. That was followed in eighth place with Paramount’s animated prequel “Transformers One” with less than $2 million and $56.6 million domestic.
Jason Reitman‘s “Saturday Night” dropped to ninth place in its second weekend in wide release, down 47% from last weekend with a domestic total of $9.7 million.
Tim Burton’s earlier animated film “A Nightmare Before Christmas” continued to do well with another $1.1 million to just get into the Top 10, and Disney also re-released its original family comedy “Hocus Pocus” into 1,480 theaters this weekend, despite it being available on Disney+ for years, and that made $841,000 just outside the Top 10.
Keaton had another new movie this weekend, teaming with Mila Kunis for the dramedy “Goodrich,” which Ketchup Entertainment released into 1,055 theaters after receiving relatively positive reviews. It ended up making $650k on its opening weekend, not enough to get into the Top 10.
Also out of the Top 10 but with better mojo is the aforementioned “Anora.” Neon’s platform release of Baker’s Palme d’Or winner starring Mikey Madison launched into six theaters in New York and L.A. and led to an opening weekend of $540,000, averaging $90,000 per theater. That number is the best platform release of the year (topping the $75,000 per theater debut of “Kinds of Kindness”) and the best platform release overall since “Asteroid City” debuted in June 2023. Neon plans to expand the film throughout October and November until the Best Picture contender goes wide.
“We’re incredibly excited about this weekend’s record-breaking results and the fantastic critical and audience response to Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning film ‘Anora.’ Baker is a singular director who truly understands the power of the theatrical experience and how important it is for films to be seen in the theater,” Neon said in a statement. “With Mikey Madison in her unparalleled performance as Anora, and the film’s strong awards potential, there’s no doubt it will continue to captivate a broad audience as we move into the fall.”
Expanding out the calendar to the last five years, the $90,000 per theater average debut from “Anora” ranks in the Top 5 overall next to Neon’s Palme d’Or and Oscar Best Picture-winner ‘Parasite,’ ‘Asteroid City,’ ‘Uncut Gems,’ and ‘The Favourite.'”
Elsewhere, Bleecker Street gave filmmaker Guy Maddin the widest release of his career for his quirky political comedy “Rumours,” starring Cate Blanchett and co-directed by Evan and Galen Johnson. It opened in 560 theaters on Friday and ended up making roughly $315k, averaging less than $500 per location.
Roadside Attractions released Titus Kaphar’s acclaimed drama “Exhibiting Forgiveness” moderately into 774 theaters on Friday. Starring André Holland (“Moonlight”), theater vet John Earl Jelks, and Oscar nominees Andra Day and Aunjanue Ellis Taylor, the movie received strong reviews since its Sundance premiere with 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie ended up missing the mark with just $275.6k, averaging just $355 per theater despite the strong reviews and there being very few movies in theaters geared toward Black audiences.
Most players picked “Smile 2” to win the weekend in the Gold Derby box office prediction game, although less than one-fourth of players had it opening under $25 million since most people thought it would do better. More players had “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” taking fourth place over “Joker,” which didn’t even make it into the top five. Two players did foresee “We Live in Time” expanding wide and taking fifth place, so we’ll have to see if there were two perfect scores for the weekend.
Congrats to “Chanceman” for being the only player with a perfect score in the Oct. 11 game! Even so, “Jonathan” was last week’s point leader with 51,332 points and only four correct, but he jumped on “Terrifier 3” being first place at 100 to 1 odds and played his Super Bet accordingly. Nice one!
Next Friday brings the anti-hero prequel “Venom: The Last Dance,” once again starring Tom Hardy as Spider-Man’s “fremesis” back into theaters, so check out our weekend preview on Wednesday to learn more.
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