“Weapons” creeped back to the top of box office charts, collecting a significant $25 million in its second weekend of release. Ticket sales for the R-rated horror film declined just 43% from its $43 million debut, an impressive hold for a genre that’s known to drastically fall after opening weekend.
En route to sleeper hit status, “Weapons” has grossed $89 million domestically and $148 million worldwide after two weekends of release. The film, which cost a modest $38 million, is benefitting from great reviews and electric word-of-mouth. It’s the fifth consecutive hit for Warner Bros. following “A Minecraft Movie,” “Sinners,” “Final Destination Bloodlines” and “Superman.” Fortunes have reversed for the studio after starting the year with such financial misfires as “Mickey 17” and “The Alto Knights.”
This weekend’s only major new release, Universal’s action thriller “Nobody 2,” didn’t pack too strong a punch. The film, starring Bob Odenkirk as a seemingly mild-mannered dad who actually kicks ass and takes names, landed at No. 3 with $9.2 million from 3,260 North American theaters. That’s just barely ahead of its predecessor, 2021’s “Nobody,” which debuted to $6.8 million while cinemas were just starting to reopen and playing to limited capacity after COVID.
Timo Tjahjanto took over directing duties from the original’s filmmaker Ilya Naishuller. In the follow-up, Odenkirk’s character Hutch Mansell takes his family on vacation to the small tourist town of Plummerville and finds himself in the crosshairs of several shady locals. Audience scores for the sequel weren’t as positive as the first; “Nobody 2” earned a “B+” grade on CinemaScore compared to the original’s “A-” grade. “Nobody 2” was modestly priced at $25 million, just above the first film’s $16 million price tag.
“‘Nobody 1’ cost very little to make for a studio action picture and was comfortably profitable,” says analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research. “‘Nobody 2’ is an opportunity to earn a few more dollars without a lot of risk. At [its] price, the picture should make money.”
In second place, Disney’s “Freakier Friday” also enjoyed a solid second weekend with $14.5 million from 3,975 venues, a 50% decline from its opening. The PG sequel, reuniting Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis as mother and daughter who swap places, has earned $54.6 million in North America and $86.3 million worldwide after 10 days of release.
Another Disney film, the Marvel superhero adventure “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” plunged to the No. 4 spot with $8.8 million in its fourth weekend of release. After a promising $117 million bow, “Fantastic Four” has been quickly losing steam at the box office with $247 million in North America and $468.7 million worldwide after four weekends. Those returns are above this year’s prior Marvel entries, February’s “Captain America: Brave New World” ($415 million globally) and May’s “Thunderbolts” ($382 million globally). But after a rocky post-pandemic stretch, this performance doesn’t yet signal a return to box office glory for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
“The Bad Guys 2” rounded out the top five with $6.9 million in its third outing. Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s heist comedy has generated $56 million domestically. By comparison, the first “Bad Guys” was a slow-and-steady hit with $250 million over the course of its entire run.
Elsewhere, Sydney Sweeney’s crime thriller “Americana” cratered with $500,000 from 1,110 locations for a dismal start in 16th place. It’s one of the worst openings in history for a film that landed on more than 1,000 screens. Lionsgate acquired the film at SXSW in 2023.
“This appears to be a passive Lionsgate release designed to set up digital and streaming distribution,” Gross says. “The film was made in 2022 and finished in 2023, so it’s been sitting for over two years. Time to get it out, move it through its release windows, and put it on TV to generate some income.”
More to come…
