Battle at the Box Office 9/4/23

Denzel ruled the Labor Day weekend as The Equalizer 3 took the top spot at the box office.

The Equalizer 3 opened to $34.5 million, perfectly in line with the previous two entries in the franchise.  The Equalizer opened to $34.1 million and The Equalizer 2 opened to $36 million.  For Denzel, that opening is between two Antoine Fuqua collaborations, The Magnificent Seven and The Equalizer.  For Fuqua, it’s his third-best opening of all time behind The Equalizer 2 and The Magnificent Seven.  The Equalizer 3 has a worldwide total so far of $68.1 million.

Barbie remained in second place with another $10.6 million, bringing it to $609.5 million domestically and $1.381 billion worldwide, making it officially the highest-grossing film of 2023 worldwide.  On the all-time box office charts, domestically Barbie is now 13th behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi and 15th worldwide, behind Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Blue Beetle stayed in third place with $7.2 million, showing that it may have some staying power compared to its fellow 2023 DC movies.  Blue Beetle dropped 40% from last weekend and has $56.5 million domestic and $101.8 million worldwide.

Gran Turismo and Oppenheimer rounded out the top 5.  Gran Turismo had a fairly huge drop in its second weekend, 62%, and making $6.5 million.  It currently has $28.6 million domestically and $80.9 million worldwide.  Oppenheimer has $852.9 million worldwide and is Christopher Nolan’s third biggest movie of all time behind The Dark Knight Rises and The Dark Knight.

Further down the list, Bottoms expanded to 715 theaters and took 7th place with $3 million.  It has $3.7 million domestically so far.

The Per Theater average went to The Equalizer 3, which took in $8,701 in each of the 3,965 theaters it was playing in over the weekend.