In an upset no one saw coming, Warner Bros’ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’s third weekend stole the No. 1 spot from Paramount and Hasbro Entertainment’s Transformers One with $26M to $25M.
On Friday and into Saturday morning, some saw a tight race between the Tim Burton-directed film and the Josh Colley-helmed animated picture, however, with Matinees believed to have the new tentpole right. I will work a lot. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had an impressive $11.8M on Saturday compared to Transformers One’s $9.1M.
At the end of the day, seeing one franchise triumph over another by a margin, well, that’s a rich man’s problem, a big studio problem, albeit with a lot more to show for it. Three Petes is a great series for any major studio to pick up at the BO. Note, this is really disappointing for Paramount Animation. Joe had high hopes for Transformers One as another potential lift for the Transformers brand after the summer 2023 release of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (which grossed $438.9M worldwide, surpassing Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Earned), but alas, here is this movie. Opening just above Bumblebee’s $21.6M, and in the average $20M range for September animated films (ie opening season at $23.6M), not in the $30M-$40M+ range. What shouldn’t be overlooked is that this is still a solid take for a $75M supported animated film in September, especially with these exits. Not many major motion picture studios went to San Diego Comic-Con (read, Warner Bros. sitting down with Joker 2 and Beetlejuice with Beetlejuice ), but Paramount took down Transformers One with Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry. As we told you yesterday, Transformers One in its full form appears more to under-12s than to fanboys, and so there’s not as much over-indexing as expected. Only $2M was made on IMAX screens for Transformers One. Overall IMAX and PLF increased ticket sales by 35% over the weekend. The film’s largest demo was males under the age of 25 at 37 percent. Hasbro Entertainment controls the movie merchandise and that’s where the wealth comes from.
Following a $4.5M debut with Lionsgate’s Halle Berry’s Never Let Go , and Mubi’s first wide release, the body-swap horror movie The Substance , starring Demi Moore , at $3.1M, below is our deep dive of the week. Read on.
As for Never Let Go , the numbers speak for themselves for Lionsgate’s Oscar-winning best actress Monsters Ball and the studio’s latest bombshell, starting with Borderlands . Never Let Go is on the low end of Barry’s box office debut, even lower than the Wachowskis’ disaster Cloud Atlas ($9.6M) — and it’s not his fault. Pre-Covid, small distributor Averon shelved its thriller, Kidnap, and got it to a $10M debut and it received lower rote critical and audience scores (35%/53%) than Never Let Go’s (65%/53%). was with 50%). ). Never Let Go is also on the low end of the opening for director Alexander Aja – even lower than his CinemaScore C+ crawl from 2019 which opened to $12M.
There’s something to be said for a post-Covid and post-strike movie-going audience that punishes low-grossing films or even mid-budget films more than the pandemic. But at the same time, Lionsgate has been known to spend less on P&A, especially when valuations for theatrical releases don’t look like a grand slam, and to appease shareholders in the ledgers (it said , Nicolas Cage’s satire The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent was a missed opportunity, settling for a $7.1M debut. In the hands of A24 or Sony, it could have been a huge cult film after playing at the SXSW premiere like a rock concert). There will be more blood: Lionsgate has a $12M-$15M production of Bagman limited next weekend (it was originally intended to be wider) at the same time as Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (which is strictly have a distribution agreement from) are going extensively with for them). I understand that Whitebird on October 4th is a particularly hard sell. Cleaning the slate, indeed.
As for The Substance, the exit from this film (B CinemaScore and 89% certified Rotten Tomatoes critics) is surprising for a horror film that can be so polarizing. It will be interesting to see who gets the most grosses in the end, The Substance or Never Let Go. Right now the town is betting that Barry has reached low double digits on film substance, simply because Lionsgate is higher than Moby.
