Friday Box Office: ‘The Woman King’ Holds As ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Passes $710 Million

In holdover news for Friday, Sony’s The Woman King earned another $2.975 million (-56%) on Friday, setting the stage for a $10 million (-47%) weekend and a $35.1 million ten-day total. Yes, that’s an excellent hold for a well-reviewed and well-received theatrical release, in yet another example of how online-centric controversies (and yes, I’m 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. That’s not quite as good of a hold as Where the Crawdads Sing (-40% from a $17 million debut and against the $44 million launch of Nope), but it still points toward a final domestic total of around $65-$70 million barring awards season heat and/or there not being a ton of female-led films in the marketplace (alongside, obviously, Don’t Worry Darling).

Barbarian added 550 theaters in its third weekend and earned another $1.43 million (-28%). That sets the stage for a $4.75 million (-27%) weekend and a $28.33 million 17-day total. That’s a frankly terrific hold for an original, star-lite, hard-R grindhouse horror flick, and that Disney has A) given the film more theaters and B) cut a new buzz-driven trailer means that they know what they’ve got. ParamountPARA
has Smile opening next weekend (for which Paramount cleverly placed creepy smiling people in full view of the cameras for last night’s Mets and Yankees games), but Barbarian could still crawl past $40 million domestic. A24’s Pearl also held firm with $585,000 (-56%) on Friday for a likely $1.8 million (-38%) weekend and $6.6 million ten-day total. Once again, horror is keeping theaters alive in times of feast and famine.

Searchlight’s See How They Run earned $570,000 (-49%) on Friday for a $1.78 million (-41%) weekend and $6 million ten-day total. A strong hold doesn’t mean much when the numbers are so small. Sony’s Bullet Train earned $500,000 (-30%) on Friday for a $1.8 million (-29%) weekend and $99.233 million domestic cume. Yes, it’ll pass $100 million sometime next week. Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick earned another $460,000 (-28%) on Friday to pass $710 million domestic. We can expect a $1.63 million (-27%) weekend and $711.6 million domestic 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. Awards attention may move the needle.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s DC League of Super Pets earned $370,000 (-14%) for a $1.7 million (-22%) weekend and $90 million domestic cume. 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. Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru will have $364 million domestic by tomorrow alongside its $915 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. The David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream expanded to non-PLF theaters for a 733-theater screen count. It earned $300,000 (-50%) on Friday for a likely $670,000 (-46%) weekend. $2.35 million isn’t bad for a music documentary of this nature.