Battle at the Box Office 4/29/24

Challengers had a stronger-than-expected opening weekend, exceeding projections and taking the #1 spot at the box office.

Challengers took in $15 million, just shy of Amazon MGM’s previous 2024 hit, The Beekeeper, which opened to $16 million but to a much different audience. It’s the biggest opening for director Luca Guadagnino, although none of his other movies had even close to the wide opening that Challengers got. It’s one of the lower openings for Zendaya, but she has been in almost nothing but massive blockbusters like Dune or the Spider-Man movies, so that’s probably to be expected. Worldwide, Challengers has made $25.3 million.

Unsung Hero took second place, also doing better than many predictions with $7.7 million. It’s a higher opening than the recent Ordinary Angels, also released by Kingdom Story Company, but down from their movies Jesus Revolution and I Still Believe.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire remained in third place with another $7.2 million, bringing it to $181.7 million domestically and over $500 million worldwide. It’s second only to Dune: Part Two, which had made over $700 million worldwide.

Civil War and Abigail rounded out the top 5, with both movies having decent holds, especially Civil War, which only dropped 38% and made another $7 million, taking it to $56.1 million domestically and $70.8 million worldwide.

Way down the list, Boy Kills World barely debuted in the top 10 in tenth place with $1.6 million in just under 2,000 theaters. The re-release of Alien almost beat it, which came in 11th place with $1.5 million.

The per-theater average went to We Grown Now, which made $40,304 in 3 theaters over the weekend.