Battle at the Box Office 8/28/23

It was close coming out of Sunday between Gran Turismo and Barbie but the actual numbers gave the victory firmly to Gran Turismo at this past weekend’s box office.

Gran Turismo took in $17.4 million for the weekend, boosted by strong audience reaction and National Cinema Day on Sunday, which saw reduced-price tickets available at many theater locations nationwide.  It’s nowhere near the last major PlayStation movie, Uncharted, which opened to over $44 million and around half of what Ford v Ferrari opened to back in 2019.  The CinemaScore was an A from audiences and the Rotten Tomatoes audience rating is 98%, so Gran Turismo could have some legs over the next few weeks as we close out the summer season.

The summer’s undisputed champion, Barbie, dropped to 2nd place with another $15.1 million.  Early estimates had it basically tied with Gran Turismo but the actual numbers widened that gap.  Barbie now has $592.8 million domestically and $1.339 billion worldwide.  It has about $19 million to pass The Super Mario Bros. Movie worldwide to become the biggest movie globally for 2023.  All-time, Barbie is now 16th worldwide and 14th domestically.  It is now Warner Bros. biggest movie ever worldwide, topping Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

Blue Beetle dropped 51% and slid to third place in its second weekend with $12.2 million.  It now has $45.7 million domestically and $81.5 million worldwide.

Oppenheimer and TMNT: Mutant Mayhem rounded out the top 5.  Oppenheimer has $777.9 million worldwide and TMNT has $136.3 million worldwide.

Further down the list, two new releases that were in more limited release were toward the bottom of the top 10.  Retribution, the latest Liam Neeson action movie, made $3.5 million and took 8th place.  That is basically exactly where Blacklight and Memory opened last year and it seems like Liam Neeson has plateaued at a sub $4 million opening for these newer thrillers.  The Hill, a based on true events baseball movie, took 9th place with $2.5 million.

The Per Theater average went to Bottoms, which expanded to 10 theaters and made $46,105 in each theater.