Battle at the Box Office 7/3/23
Indiana Jones’ final adventure took the top spot at the box office over the weekend but it was well below expectations, as is the trend for almost this entire summer so far.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny opened to $60.3 million domestically. It is technically the second biggest opening in the Indiana Jones series but if you adjust for inflation, Last Crusade and Temple of Done are far ahead. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the more recent comparison, opened to over $100 million back in 2008. Worldwide, the movie has $130.2 million so far. It’s a weird holiday week where Independence Day is on a Tuesday and some people may have decided to go today or tomorrow to Dial of Destiny, instead of the normal three-day weekend, but it’s still another disappointing opening in a summer full of movies that had massive budgets and low openings. Dial of Destiny reportedly had a budget of $295 million before promotion and advertising, which normally adds at least another $100 million to the costs. The movie has a B+ CinemaScore, which doesn’t bode too well for word of mouth but we’ll have to see how it does in its second weekend.
Elemental stayed in second place with another $12.1 million. After its low opening, it has continued to hold well, probably since it’s one of the only family-animated choices out in theaters currently. The movie only fell another 34% from last weekend and now has $89.6 million domestically and $187.6 million worldwide. It seems to be proving to be a slow but steady performer.
After taking back the #1 spot last weekend, Across the Spider-Verse dropped back down to third with another $12 million. The movie now has $340.3 million domestically and $607 million worldwide. It’s one of the few unmitigated successes for the summer, along with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3.
No Hard Feelings and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts rounded out the top 5. No Hard Feelings dropped 48% from last weekend, which is fairly good for an R-rated comedy in the midst of tons of competition. The movie took in $7.8 million over the weekend and has $29.6 million domestically so far and $49.6 million worldwide. Transformers has $136.4 million domestically so far and $379.4 million worldwide.
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken had a fairly disastrous opening, debuting in 6th place with only $5.2 million. The movie has solid Cinemascore from the few people who saw it but it seemed to be barely advertised and audiences are choosing Spider-Verse or Elemental for animated movies in theaters. This seems like something that maybe should have shifted to being a Peacock exclusive and if it continues to do poorly, it may end up on the streaming service sooner rather than later.
The Per Theater average went to Contempt, which was celebrating its 60th anniversary in 1 theater, where it made $14,469.