‘Everything, Everywhere’ Drops 0%, Tops $30 Million

Everything, Everywhere All at Once got a week’s worth of IMAX engagements beginning yesterday and grossed $1.56 million on its sixth Friday for a new $31.5 million cume. That’s a 0.04% jump from last Friday for a likely for a likely $5.4 million (-0.5%) weekend and a $35.35 million domestic cume. Yes, it added 80 theaters, including the IMAX venues, but this is still downright implausible. This is the second straight Sixth Sense/Greatest Showman-sized drop for the Daniels’ buzzy metaverse action-comedy, and its fourth weekend earning at least $5 million. It assures that the $25 million flick (for which A24 covered much of the budget via overseas distribution pre-sales) will reach $40 million domestic. A merely normal rate of descent puts it past Hereditary ($44 million) as A24’s third-biggest domestic earner.

Another hold like this, even against Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness next weekend, and it’ll threaten Lady Bird ($49 million) and Uncut Gems ($50 million) for A24’s top spot. This is almost unprecedented in remotely modern times for an indie like this outside of the Oscar season to pull legs of this nature. And this is an R-rated, high-concept, narratively overwhelming original starring actors who are (at best) known without being butts-in-seats stars. This is an honest-to-goodness word-of-mouth sleeper hit sensation, exactly the kind of thing that isn’t supposed to happen in our streaming-centric, pop culture-fractured, IP-centric theatrical environment. For the last few weeks, I’ve argued for possible final domestic cumes presuming normal rates of weekend-to-weekend descent only for the film to barely drop at all.

It has already earned 5.8x its $6 million wide release opening weekend (after playing in ten and 38 theaters on weekends one and two before expanding to 1,250 theaters and then 2,220 theaters in weekends three and four). If the Michelle Yeoh/Ke Huy Quan/Stephanie Hsu/James Hong flick merely plays like Crazy Rich Asians ($174 million from a $134 million “end of fourth-weekend cume”), The Blair Witch Project (which also expanded to 1,101 theaters in weekend three and then 2,412 theaters in weekend four) or Paranormal Activity from here on out, it’ll end with $46 million domestic. That will still be bigger than any of last year’s Oscar season releases save for Dune ($108 million) and House of Gucci ($52 million).

The two horror flicks had mostly normal 40-50% drops after weekends four and six respectively. Fun with math, but if Everything Everywhere All at Once continues to leg out like The Greatest Showman or The Sixth Sense (not counting the latter’s Oscar season reissue), it will reach $65-$70 million domestic cume. If the A24 flick plays like the M. Night Shyamalan super-smash (which earned $293 million in 1999/2000 from a $26 million debut weekend) and ends up in the Oscar race and benefiting from an awards season reissue, then it could (emphasis on “could”) close out with $75 million domestic. That’s all assuming it doesn’t dive next weekend sans IMAX screens against the MCU mega-movie. But so far, the film has been all about defying expectations.