Battle at the Box Office 5/13/24

After The Fall Guy fizzled out last weekend, Kingdom of the Planet of Apes delivered an above-expectations debut for the 50+-year-old franchise.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes opened to $56.5 million domestically and $129 million worldwide.  That is in line with the last entry in the franchise, War for the Planet of the Apes, which opened to  $56.2 million back in 2017.  Kingdom was the third-best opening in the franchise, behind Dawn of the Planet of Apes and Planet of the Apes (2001).  The movie got a B CinemaScore, which may mean some mixed word of mouth going into this second weekend.  It’s a big step up for director Wes Ball, whose previous best opening was 2014’s The Maze Runner, which opened to $32.5 million.

The Fall Guy dropped 51% to second place with another $13.6 million.  It now has $49.6 million domestically and $103.7 million worldwide.  It’s tracking slightly behind David Leitch’s Bullet Train, which topped out at $103 million domestically, so The Fall Guy will either barely break $100 million or be in the $80-90 million range, depending on how much it keeps dropping off.

Challengers stayed in third place with another $4.3 million, bringing it to $37.6 million domestically and $68.5 million worldwide.

Tarot and Godzilla x Kong rounded out the top 5.  Tarot dropped 48% from last week, which isn’t bad for a horror movie, but it also didn’t have that large of an opening.  It now has $11.9 million domestically and $20.1 million worldwide.  Godzilla x Kong has $558.5 million and is around $3 million from topping Kong: Skull Island, becoming the highest-grossing movie in the Monsterverse.

Further down the list, it seems like The Phantom Menace was a 1-week event for most fans, as it nosedived 83% from last weekend and fell to 9th place with $1.5 million.

The per-theater average went to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which made $13,865 in each of the 4,075 theaters it played over the weekend.