August kicked off with The Fantastic Four: First Steps still on top of the box office, but it suffered a steep second weekend drop.
First Steps dropped 67% from last weekend’s solid opening, taking in another $38.6 million and bringing its domestic total to $197.1 million. That drop is tied with Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness at fifth place for the top 5 steepest MCU second weekend drops. It had strong reviews and seemingly strong word of mouth, but it was seemingly extremely front-loaded. Many audience members may be completely burned out on superhero movies or are waiting to watch them at home on Disney+. Worldwide, the film has $367.4 million.
The Bad Guys 2 was in second place with $21.9 million. That’s just slightly behind the first movie, which opened to $23.9 million in 2022. The movie got an excellent A CinemScore, so it seems like the go-to late summer movie for kids and families, and should have some strong legs. Worldwide, it has $44.4 million so far.
The Naked Gun opened in third place with $17 million, outperforming expectations. Unadjusted for inflation, it’s the second-best opening in the Naked Gun franchise, behind 1991’s The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear, which opened to $20.8 million. For director Akiva Schaffer, it’s his best opening ever, ahead of The Watch, which made $12.7 million in 2012. For Liam Neeson, the opening sits between The Gray and A Million Ways to Die in the West, but it’s his first film to open above $10 million since Men in Black: International.  The movie got an A- CinemaScore and that plus its overperformance should give it strong word of mouth going into its second weekend.
Superman and Jurassic World: Rebirth rounded out the top 5.  Superman is at $551 million worldwide and Rebirth is at $766.8 million worldwide, making them the seventh and fourth highest-grossing films worldwide for the year.
Just outside the top 5 was Together, which opened in sixth place with $6.7 million. It opened on Wednesday last week, so its domestic total is $10.8 million. The movie received a C+ CinemaScore, which is fairly typical for a horror movie, and we’ll have to see how it performs this coming weekend.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps had the best per-theater average for the weekend with $9,381 in each of the 4,125 theaters it was playing in over the weekend.
