‘RRR’ Tops $100 Million As ‘The Batman’ Passes ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2’

In holdover box office news for the weekend, The Lost City earned $14.8 million (-51%) in its second domestic weekend. That’s a decent but not superlative hold, farther from The Proposal (-44% from a $33 million debut in June of 2009)and closer to Ocean’s 8 (-54% after a $41 million debut in June of 2018). The Sandra Bullock/Channing Tatum flick will have $54.8 million domestic tonight. At a conventional rate of descent, Paramount’s original, star-driven high concept release (what we used to call “a movie”) will end its domestic run with between $85 million and $105 million. The $70 million flick could end up closer to $100 million over the long haul, depending on how it legs out as essentially the only big release for a while playing explicitly (but not exclusively) to adult women. For the moment, I choose optimism.

Warner Bros.’ The Batman earned another $10.8 million (-47%) in its fifth weekend, bringing its 31-day domestic total up to $349 million. It’ll pass Deadpool ($363 million) in the next two weeks to place behind just Spider-Man ($403 million), Wonder Woman ($413 million), Captain Marvel ($427 million) and Black Panther ($700 million) among “part one” superhero flicks. Matt Reeves and Peter Craig’s $185 million actioner has earned $710.5 million worldwide. That’s between Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($708 million) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier *($714 million). That’s also above The Twilight Saga: Eclipse ($706 million) as Robert Pattinson’s second-biggest global grosser. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part II ($829 million) is likely a bridge too far. Now past It ($700 million), The Batman is WB’s fourth-biggest global grosser over the last five years, behind Wonder Woman ($821 million), Joker ($1.073 billion) and Aquaman ($1.148 billion).

Meanwhile, Sony’s Uncharted earned $3.63 million (-27%) in its seventh weekend for a $139 million domestic and over/under $375 million global cume. Whether moving Morbius farther away from No Way Home hurt the former Marvel film, it certainly helped the video game flick. If it can hang on for a little longer, the Tom Holland/Mark Wahlberg adventure can best Detective Pikachu ($144 million) and Sonic the Hedgehog ($148 million, with $2 million of that coming from summer 2020 Covid play) as the biggest video game movie ever in unadjusted domestic earnings. Me thinks Sony should do Morbius/Uncharted double-features if the Jared Leto flick crashes next weekend. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will hope to make this entire proposition immaterial next weekend. Skipping around a bit, Spider-Man: No Way Home will earn $1.42 million (-29%) in its 16th weekend for a new $803 million cume.

India’s RRR passed $105 million in global box office earnings, which makes the (not surprising) downward trajectory of its domestic run easier to swallow. S. S. Rajamouli’s three-hour action spectacular earned around $1.63 million (-83%) on its second weekend, bringing its 11-day (it technically opened on a Thursday) cume to $12.62 million. My social media feeds seem to imply that a lot of folks, critics, pundits and film nerds, are popping their proverbial Indian mega-movie cherry on this one. Netflix has the post-theatrical domestic distribution rights, which means that I can see this being one of those “Hey, wow, this bonkers-bananas Indian actioner is Netflix’s most-watched movie” articles in the future. Nonetheless, the important thing is that those who wanted to see Rise Roar Revolt theatrically got a chance to do so.

FUNimation and Crunchy Roll’s Jujutsu Kaisen 0 earned around $1.95 million (-57%) in weekend three. That’s a $31.44 million 17-day total for the Japanese anime horror fantasy. It has earned around $165 million worldwide. Channing Tatum’s Dog earned $1.318 million (-38%) in weekend seven as the $15 million MGM drama passed $60 million. A24 expanded Everything Everywhere All At Once in 38 theaters in advance of its wide release this Friday. The Daniels’ (Kwan and Scheinert) fantasy earned $1.011 million (+98%) in weekend two for a $1.8 million total. That $26,631 per-theater average is solid, but the real test is whether this terrific Michelle Yeoh/Ke Huy Quan flick can break out next weekend. Ti West’s future cult classic X earned around $1 million (-55%) for a $10.1 million 17-day cume. Universal’s Sing 2 earned another $3 million worldwide for a $395 million global cume (cough-Turning Red-cough).