UPDATED, Friday afternoon: Two animated movies, Disney/Pixar’s Elemental and Sony Animation’s monolith Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, have punked The Flash and are in a fierce fight for No. 1 at the weekend box office with about $18 million apiece after Fridays that are estimated around $5.4M each.
If a bulk of those figures stick, Elemental, which posted one of the lowest openings for a Pixar movie in recent memory at $29.6M (though not as low as the first Toy Story, which did $29.1M), will see a second weekend ease of -39%, which isn’t that bad. That will get its 10-day take to $65M at 4,035 theaters, which is $5M more than the pandemic disaster Onward.
Meanwhile, there’s no such thing as superhero fatigue with Across the Spider-Verse easing 33% in its fourth weekend, swinging its running total by EOD Sunday to $315.8M at 3,785 theaters. By Sunday, Across the Spider-Verse will be pacing 14% ahead of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man: Homecoming (which finaled at $334.2M) and 5% behind Spider-Man: Far From Home (which finaled at $390.5M stateside). Wow, wow, wow.
(L-R) ‘The Flash’, ‘No Hard Feelings’ and ‘Asteroid City’
Everett
Meanwhile, Warner Bros/DC’s The Flash is looking at a second Friday of $4.3M and second weekend of $14M, right now down a massive 75%. Should that hold, it will be worse than the 66% second-weekend drop weathered by Warner Bros/DC’s Green Lantern back in 2011. The running total for Flash by Sunday will be around $86.3M at 4,256 theaters.
Flash could lose third to Sony’s new R-rated Jennifer Lawrence comedy No Hard Feelings which has a shot at $14M-$15M after a $5.3M Friday at 3,208 theaters.
Fifth place goes to Paramount’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts with a third Friday of $3M, a three-day of $10.6M, -49%, and a running total of $121.9M. Yes, the seventh robots-in-disguise film will definitely beat out the domestic gross of the last two Transformers movies: Last Knight at $130.1M and Bumblebee at $127.1M.
And the second weekend of Focus Features’ Wes Anderson title Asteroid City is looking better than the second and third weekend of the filmmaker’s The French Dispatch ($2M+) with $7.5M at 1,675 theaters. That will put the 10-day total for the ensemble comedy at $8.7M.
PREVIOUSLY, Friday AM: Sony’s mission to return comedy to the big screen with the R-rated Jennifer Lawrence movie No Hard Feelings began Thursday, when the film grossed $2.15 million from showtimes that began at 4 p.m. at 2,745 locations. The pic hopes to do around $12M this weekend in what will be second session where Warner Bros’ misfire The Flash hopes not take a -70% tumble. At the low end that’s $16.5M. A good hold will be off 55% to north of $24M.
The Flash grossed $2.8M Thursday at 4,234 theaters, off 9% from Wednesday, putting its first-week gross at $72.3M. That amount of money is what tracking thought the DC pic would do in Weekend 1.
There are no comps post-pandemic really for No Hard Feelings since we haven’t had a raunchy comedy for a while. The pic did best Universal’s female-leaning rom-com Ticket to Paradise, which made $1.1M off Thursday showtimes that began at 5 p.m. (even though that pic is older skewing and PG-13). Ticket to Paradise opened to $16.5M.
For filmmaker Gene Stupnitsky, who helmed No Hard Feelings, his previous R-rated comedy Good Boys was a high point for raunchy fare at the box office, opening to $21.4M in pre-pandemic August 2019 and legging out to $83.1M. God knows if those types of numbers can be achieved anymore since the industry has conditioned audiences to watch comedies in their homes on streaming versus with a group in theaters. But again, it comes down to product. Nothing is possible at the box office until a genre breaks through and changes the course of history; remember how pirate movies were the kiss of death until Pirates of the Caribbean came along?
Critics didn’t get No Hard Feelings at 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences in early RT reactions seem to at 88%. Out of the gate on Comscore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak, the Lawrence-led comedy is 4 stars, 84% positive — not bad. Last night saw 37% guys over 25, 29% women over 25, 19% women under 25 and 15% men under 25.
RELATED: ‘No Hard Feelings’ Review: Jennifer Lawrence Leans Into Hard-R Comedy
Focus Features’ expansion of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is off to a great start with $1.1M from 1,400 theaters last night in previews. The film swells from six Los Angeles and New York City locations to 1,675 today. Last weekend, the absurdist comedy ensemble posted the best opening theater average post pandemic with $140,000. The movie is expected to do in the single digits in its second weekend. Anderson’s previous movie, The French Dispatch, released when audiences were still trying to make their way back to theaters in the fall of 2021, grossed north of $2M when it went to a 1,000-plus theater break during its third weekend.
Asteroid City is 74% certified fresh with Rotten Tomatoes critics, which is a notch below where French Dispatch was at 75%. That pic also scored 76% with audiences on RT versus Asteroid City which is currently 69%. Asteroid City’s PostTrak is also 4 stars, but 79% positive. Thursday night attendance was comprised of 42% guys over 25, 28% women over 25, 16% men under 25 and 15% women under 25.
RELATED: ‘Asteroid City’ Review: Wes Anderson’s Latest Is Quirky, Creative & Obscure
Other activity Thursday: Sony Animation’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse led all pics in regular release with $3.6M (-5% from Wednesday) at 3,873 theaters, good for a $45.2M third week and running total of $297.8M. The Marvel pic will cross the three-century mark today.
Disney/Pixar’s Elemental was second at 4,035 theaters with $3.5M, even with Wednesday, for a first week of $46.9M. That’s less than the first week of the pandemic-impacted Pixar movie Onward, which made $49.7M in its first week. Warners/DC’s The Flash was third yesterday.
Paramount’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts did $1.9M yesterday off 3,680 theaters, -5% from Wednesday, for a second week of $30.7M and a running total of $111.3M.
Disney’s The Little Mermaid at 3,480 theaters made $1.7M, -5%, for a fourth week of $19.5M. Its running total is $261.5M.
The summer box office for the period of May 1-June 19 stands at $1.52 billion from 11 wide releases (north of 2,000 theaters). That’s 2.3% ahead of last summer, which counted $1.49 billion for the frame from six wide releases. The 2023 summer B.O. is 11% behind pre-pandemic 2019, which had grossed $1.7 billion for the period of May 1-June 19 off of 17 wide releases (north of 2,000 locations).