‘Black Adam’ Drops 72%, ‘Terrifier 2’ Continues To Defy Gravity

In holdover news, Warner Bros. Discovery’s Black Adam topped again with $7.5 million to bring its cume to $90.939 million. That’s a sharp 72% drop, but it’s frankly par for the course for big-budget DC/Marvel superhero movies that do not set the world on fire. It’s a sharper first-Friday to second-Friday drop than Shazam! (-68%) but better than the second-Friday drops for Thor: Love and Thunder (-80%), Eternals (-75%) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (-76%). If it gets a kid-centric boost today, as did Shazam! in 2019, we’re looking at a $29 million (-57%) weekend and $112 million ten-day cume. If it just plays like a regular superhero biggie, it’ll earn around $25 million (-63%) for a $108 million cume. Still, legs like Shazam, Thor 4 or Venom 2 after day ten gets the $195 million Dwayne Johnson flick to $160-$165 million domestic.

Universal’s Ticket to Paradise earned $3.13 million (-51%) on Friday for a likely $10.36 million (-37%) weekend and $34.1 million ten-day total. That’s a terrific hold for the adult-skewing (but grandparent-friendly) George Clooney/Julia Roberts romantic comedy. Even Where the Crawdads Sing dropped 40% from its $17 million debut in July. I’d expect strong holds amid superhero epics, animated films, and awards season expansions over the next month. The $60 million release passed $100 million worldwide earlier this week. If it follows like Crawdads ($90 million after a $38 million ten-day total), Ticket to Paradise will finish with around $80 million domestically. We can debate how good that might have been in the late 1990s/early 2000s, but it’s undoubtedly impressive by modern-day standards. By the way, Minions: The Rise of Gru is at $369 million, making it the biggest-grossing Illumination flick ever in unadjusted domestic earnings.

Paramount’s Smile, a $17 million horror original initially intended for Paramount+, earned $1.585 million (-39%) on Friday for a likely $5.2 million (-39%) weekend and $92.5 million 31-day cume. It will pass Halloween Kills ($92 million last October) as the third-biggest R-rated grosser since Bad Boys for Life with Brad Pitt’s Bullet Train ($103 million) and maybe Jordan Peele’s Nope ($123 million) in its sights. Universal’s Halloween Ends earned $1.14 million (-54%) on Friday for a $3.77 million (-53%) weekend and $60 million 17-day cume. It’s dropping fast, but it’s still a $33 million horror threequel that will earn around $110 million worldwide, bringing the entire Blumhouse trilogy to over/under $500 million worldwide on a combined $63 million budget. We should all fail so well. Lyle Lyle Crocodile crossed $30 million domestic yesterday with a $715,000 (-38%) gross. Expect a $2.5 million (-42%) weekend and a $32.2 million 24-day cume.

Bloody Disgusting’s Terrifier 2 continued to defy logic, conventional wisdom, good taste and proper social etiquette, expanding to 1,550 theaters in weekend four and grossing another $575,500 (+5%) on Friday. That positions Art the Clown’s heartwarming dramedy for a $1.86 million (+6%) weekend and $8 million domestic cume. This, from a mostly crowdfunded horror sequel that was mainly thrown into theaters for a few days as a bit of seasonal “Why the hell not?” content, and it’s honestly likely to outgross most of this year’s designed award-season releases. While it’s unrated, if it had bothered to get an NC-17, it would rank fourth on that list behind (for now) Henry & June ($11.5 million in 1990), Showgirls ($20 million in 1995) and Last Tango in Paris ($36 million as an X-rated film in 1973). It’s still far away from the $600 million allegedly earned by Deep Throat, but hey, #Terrifier3Goals.