Battle at the Box Office 3/4/24

After two months of depressing, lackluster box office returns, Dune: Part Two finally got the spice flowing with the biggest opening for 2024.

Dune: Part Two opened to $82.5 million domestically and a massive $182.3 million worldwide.  Its domestic opening is double what Dune made in 2021 on opening weekend but the major caveat is that the pandemic was still a major concern and Warner Bros. released it day and date on HBO Max as part of “Project Popcorn”.  Part Two basically opened exactly where Oppenheimer opened last summer and the audience has the same proclivity toward premium formats, with 48% of the opening weekend for Dune: Part Two coming from IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and other formats.  The movie also got an excellent “A” on CinemaScore, so word of mouth should be strong for Dune in the next few weeks.  If it continues to keep pace with Oppenheimer, it could end up with a $300 million+ domestic total.  Dune: Part Two is also easily director Denis Villeneuve’s biggest opening weekend ever.

Bob Marley: One Love dropped to second place but fell a reasonable 45% against the onslaught of Dune with another $7.4 million.  The biopic now has $82.7 million domestically and $146 million worldwide.

Ordinary Angels stayed in third place, dropping 38% from last weekend and making another $3.8 million, bringing it to $12.5 million domestically.

The Chosen: Season 4 Episodes 7-8 and Madame Web rounded out the top 5.  The Chosen took in $3.2 million, which is the lowest opening ever for The Chosen franchise.  There’s been a new release almost every week of new The Chosen episodes and maybe some fans are getting burned out going to the theater every week.  Madame Web currently has $40.4 million domestically and $91 million worldwide, which just barely covers its budget but breaking even is the best-case scenario for Sony’s latest disaster.

Further down the list, Drive-Away Dolls has absolutely no traction, falling out of the top 10 from its already bad 8th-place debut, falling to 11th place with just $999,130.

The per-theater average went to A24’s Promlemista which took in $28,187 in the 5 theaters it was playing in over the weekend.