‘Everything Everywhere’ Rerelease Tops ‘Morbius’ Rerelease

In silly bits of box office trivia, A24 returned the Daniels’ Everything, Everywhere All at Once into 1,490 theaters in its 19th week of domestic release. The Michelle Yeoh-led multiverse action/fantasy melodrama earned an additional $650,000 to boost its domestic cume up to $68.8 million. That’s not precisely a barn-burning number, with just $434 per theater (lower than the previous weekend’s $556 per-theater haul in 170 auditoriums), which makes sense since the film has been out for five months and has been on DVD, VOD and EST for the last month and change.

However, the film did pass $100 million worldwide on an over/under $20 million budget, a first for any A24 flick. Moreover, it earned more than Sony’s somewhat prank-ish reissue of Morbius in early June. So yes, in this specific circumstance, Everything, Everywhere All at Once topped Morbius at the box office.

Sony reissued Jared Leto’s Morbius into 1,037 theaters in early June, a primarily dead weekend sans any significant new wide releases. Whether Sony honestly believed that the online memes and social media chatter was indicative of actual interest or whether (as I would argue) they were playing along, the film earned just $310,000 over the weekend, essentially bombing twice. The poorly reviewed Marvel (but not quite MCU) flick earned $74 million domestic from a $39 million opening and $164 million worldwide.

The only reason it’s not a total catastrophe is that it cost $75 million. Moreover, Sony has been on a relative roll since Venom: Let There Be Carnage proved last October (via a $90 million debut and eventual $505 million global cume) that movie theaters were safe for preordained blockbusters. When Spider-Man: No Way Home tops $1.91 billion, Morbius failing to sweep is more of… an emotional wound.

Sony had decent grosses (and decent reviews) for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which earned $200 million worldwide on a $75 million budget (as opposed to the also-good Ghostbusters: Answer the Call which grossed $226 million on a $144 million budget in 2016). It scored with Spider-Man 3 version 2.0, retroactively turning past fumbles with the Toby Maguire/Andrew Garfield Spider-Man franchises into fuel for its biggest grosser ever. Uncharted passed $400 million and likely spawned a new franchise, while Where the Crawdads Sing is going to top $70 million domestic on a $24 million budget, legging out as the only big movie of the summer aimed at adult women.

Fingers crossed that Brad Pitt’s Bullet Train, Viola Davis’ The Woman King and Jonathan Majors and Glenn Powell’s Devotion, will try and make a case that Sony can do more than just open Spider-Man and Venom movies. The Morbius whiff is embarrassing, to be sure. Moreover, it’s possible evidence that Venom was the exception to the rule in terms of audiences showing up to this “Spider-Man bad guys getting a spin-off movie” sub-franchise.

Everything Everywhere All at Once proved to be (in terms of legs) the Greatest Showman of youth-skewing indie flicks. It is yet another sign that, along with Elvis trouncing Lightyear, Where the Crawdads Sing likely passing Morbius domestically and Top Gun: Maverick pulling Star Wars-level grosses, there’s more than one way to make money at the movies. If it ends in the Oscar race, and I’m guessing it will, a reissue could be enough to find that extra $4 million and push it past Morbius’ domestic total, just for spite.