‘Woman King’ Drops Just 42% As ‘Ticket To Paradise’ Expands Overseas

In holdover news for the weekend, Universal’s Ticket to Paradise continued to slowly open overseas in advance of its October 21 domestic debut. The George Clooney/Julia Roberts rom-com, about two bitter exes who team up to sabotage their daughter’s (Kaitlyn Dever) vacation wedding (and presumably fall back in love?), comes courtesy of Working Title, Smokehouse and Red Om Films. I don’t have a budget now, but I cannot imagine it cost more than $40 million (mea culpa if I’m wrong), meaning its $31 million overseas cume thus far in 51 markets is very much a good start. It earned $11.1 million this weekend, including #1 openings in the UK, Ireland, Israel and South Africa.

In like-for-like market comparisons (including exchange rates), it is running 8% ahead of The Lost City, 59% ahead of Yesterday, 62% ahead of Last Christmas and 30% ahead of House of Gucci. How I wish this one might have opened a little earlier in North America to help fill the mid-August-to-mid-September vacuum, but so far it seems to be pulling decent numbers. Come what may, at least Universal and Focus are really trying to keep the theatrical romantic comedy alive, with Marry Me, Amblin’s Easter Sunday, next weekend’s Bros and next month’s domestic release of Ticket to Paradise. And even if these films underperform theatrically, they seem to be making up for it on PVOD.

Sony and Entertainment One’s The Woman King had a terrific hold in weekend two. It grossed another $11.142 million (-42%) to bring its ten-day total to $36.28 million. That’s on par with Where the Crawdads Sing (-40% from a $17 million debut against the $44 million opening of Nope), so we could absolutely see comparable legs. While Woman King won’t have summer weekdays goosing the grosses, we could still be looking at an over/under $80 million domestic cume for the $50 million Viola Davis/Lashana Lynch/John Boyega action drama. Once again, online-centric controversies (distinguishing between good-faith conversations about the film’s historical accuracy and disingenuous folks intended to troll the discourse) don’t affect general audience behavior.

Speaking of legs, 20th Century Studios’ Barbarian earned $4.8 million while adding 550 theaters in its third weekend. That’s a 26% drop, almost unheard for a grindhouse horror flick, bringing its 17-day cume to $28.43 million. Yes, the under-$5 million original, R-rated, star-lite, and ‘hardcore’ horror flick could top $40 million by the end, and that Disney cut a new trailer and expanded the screen count suggests they know they have a gem on their hands. Let’s see if it can withstand the debut of Paramount’sPARA
Smile (for which Paramount cleverly placed creepy smiling people in full view of the cameras for last night’s Mets and Yankees games) next weekend. But it’s already a winner.

A24’s Pearl earned $1.9 million (-38%) for a $6.65 million ten-day total. That’s a better hold than X (-49% for an $8.8 million cume), which is remarkable and again a sign of buzz seeping into the non-online consumer base. The notion of Pearl getting anywhere near X’s $11.1 million domestic cume is yet another sign, if Hollywood dares listen, that theatrical is as much ‘back’ as distributors will allow it to be. And, yes, horror films of all shapes and sizes have been keeping theatrical alive during times of feast and famine.

Searchlight’s See How They Run earned $1.9 million (-37%) for a $6.105 million ten-day total. A strong hold doesn’t mean much when the numbers are so small. Sony’s Bullet Train earned $1.815 million (-29%) in its eighth weekend for a $99.247 million domestic cume. Warner Bros. Discovery’s DC League of Super Pets earned $1.765 million (-19%) over the weekend to cross $90 million domestic. That will put it above Where The Crawdads Sing ($89.6 million) and The Black Phone ($89.9 million) to become summer’s tenth-biggest domestic earner. It’s still not a hit, with $186 million worldwide on a $90 million budget, but it has earned nearly four times its $23 million opening weekend.

Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick earned another $1.559 million (-30%) in weekend 18 for a $711.6 million domestic and $1.477 billion worldwide cume. Aside from passing the inflation-adjusted total of Black Panther ($700 million in 2018/$715 million adjusted), Tom Cruise’s legacy sequel has mostly run out of milestones. We will see how close it can get to $1.5 billion worldwide by the end. Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru will have $365.5 million domestic by tonight alongside its $919 million-plus global total (on a $80 million budget). Illumination may be expanding beyond kid-targeted animation, so that R-rated, grimdark Gru (“Is it just me, or is it getting more despicable out there?”) may be closer to reality.

Sony and Screen Gems’ The Invitation has earned $23 million domestic and $32 million worldwide on a $10 million budget. The David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream expanded to non-PLF theaters for a 733-theater screen count. It earned a solid $922,000 (-25%) in weekend two for a decent $2.6 million ten-day total. Brahmastra Part 1: Shiva fell 62% (while losing 350 theaters) in weekend three for a $415,000 weekend and $7.5 million domestic cume. It has earned $44 million worldwide along with whatever else is has grossed outside of the UK and India (the two key territories which Disney is handling alongside domestic distribution). Finally, Beast has $31 million domestic and $56 million worldwide.