Battle at the Box Office 5/6/24
Summer blockbuster season is off to a not-so-great start as The Fall Guy opened below expectations but still managed to take the top spot at the box office.
The Fall Guy opened to $27.7 million, which is down from earlier estimates as the movie’s Sunday numbers came in lower than expected. Worldwide, the film has $65.2 million. The budget for the movie was around $125 million, so it’s not the absurdly bloated budgets of some of last summer’s biggest bombs, but it’s definitely not where Universal probably hoped things would be. The audience skewed older, which might mean that the IP didn’t appeal to younger audiences, but the audiences that did show up gave it an excellent A- CinemaScore, so word of mouth should be strong. There was a lot of hype going in that Ryan Gosling, riding high off Barbie last year, would make The Fall Guy have a pretty big opening, but that wasn’t the case.
The re-release of The Phantom Menace took second place with $8 million. The movie is celebrating its 25th anniversary later this month. It was also “Star Wars Day” on Saturday, so it seems like many fans headed to the theaters to celebrate Episode 1. With its original run and other re-releases, The Phantom Menace has a domestic total of $482.6 million and a worldwide gross of just over $1 billion.
Challengers dropped 49% in its second weekend, dropping to third place and taking in another $7.5 million. It now has $29.4 million domestically and $52.4 million worldwide.
Tarot opened in fourth place with $6.5 million. That’s low even compared to other horror movies released this year, like Imaginary, Night Swim, and Abigail. It has a C- CinemaScore, so expect it to drop quickly out of the top 10. Godzilla x Kong rounded out the top 5 with another $4.5 million, bringing it to $188.1 domestically and $547.2 million worldwide.
Further down the list, Unsung Hero had a fairly steep drop in its second weekend, dropping 61% and falling from 2nd to 7th with $2.9 million. It has $13.1 million domestically so far.
The per-theater average went to A24’s I Saw the TV Glow, which made $29,085 in each of the four theaters it was playing in over the weekend.