Battle at the Box Office 4/3/23

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves debuted to higher than expected numbers and took the top spot at the box office from John Wick Chapter 4, which had a steeper than expected drop off.

Honor Among Thieves opened to $37.2 million, which was well above the predictions of around $30 million.  It has a strong critical response with a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and the Cinemascore was an A-, so it could hold well, even against the potential juggernaut of The Super Mario Bros Movie this coming week.  The movie made another $32 million internationally for a worldwide gross of $70 million.  It’s also a huge improvement on the first, abysmal attempt to bring D&D to the big screen as the 2000 film starring Jeremy Irons opened to just over $14 million, adjusted for inflation.  It’s also up from directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s last movie, Game Night, which opened to just over $17 million but had a significantly lower budget.

John Wick Chapter 4 dropped 62% from last weekend’s massive opening and took in another $28.2 million, bringing it to $122.8 million domestically and $244.7 million worldwide.  The movie had strong word of mouth from both audiences and critics but its runtime might be a factor, as possibly people are not going to a 2nd or 3rd time to an almost 3-hour movie and are waiting to revisit all the insane action at home.  Honor Among Thieves almost assuredly also stole plenty of business with its strong debut.  Despite the drop, it has surpassed the total worldwide and domestic grosses of the original John Wick and John Wick Chapter 2 and is working its way toward Chapter 3, which made $171 million domestically and $327 million worldwide.

Capitalizing on the upcoming Easter holiday, His Only Son took third place with $5.5 million in 1,920 theaters.  That puts it around recent faith-based dramas American Underdog and Father Stu in terms of opening weekend.

Scream VI and Creed III rounded out the top 5, both dropping less than 40% from last weekend.

Further down the chart, A Thousand and One took 7th place with $1.7 million in just under 1,000 theaters

The Per Theater Average went to Dungeons & Dragons, which took in $9,651 in each of the 3,855 theaters it was playing in over the weekend.