FRIDAY PM: A bit of a calm spell before the Freakier Friday-Weapons double bill happening next weekend with Fantastic Four: First Steps eyeing around $12M today for a $40M-$45M second weekend, which gets it close to $200M+ or $198M on the low-end. On the low-side that’s a -66% decline in the vicinity of Captain America: Brave New World (-68%), but harder than Thunderbolts* (-56%) which indicates the front-loaded rush to Marvel’s first family. The pic is booked at 4,125 theaters.
Marvel / © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
DreamWorks/Animation’s The Bad Guys 2 playing at 3,852 sites is doing slightly better than the 2022 original with a $9M first day (which includes previews) and a $22M 3-day.
Paramount’s The Naked Gun, knock on wood, looking alright with $6M Friday, and a $16M 3-day at 3,344. Excellent exits as we told you last night, and reviews, which are hard to come by with comedies. It needs the under 40 guy crowd to leg out. If the number holds, it will rep Liam Neeson’s biggest opening as leading star (not voiceover, cameo, narrator, supporting, etc) since 2014’s Taken 3 ($39.2M opening). If the numbers hold, it’s $1M higher than the opening of the Jennifer Lawrence R-rated comedy No Hard Feelings from 2023 — that was Sony’s attempt to revive the big screen comedy.
Warner Bros/DC Studios’ fourth weekend of James Gunn’s Superman is $13.5M, -46% for a running cume by Sunday of $315.8M. By that time pic should be pacing -5% behind the running total of Matt Reeves’ 2022 The Batman which ended its stateside run at $369.3M.
Fifth is Universal’s Jurassic World Rebirth at 3,240 locations with a Friday of $2.3M and a fifth weekend of $8.1M, -39%, and a running total by Sunday EOD of $317M. That’ll be -10% behind the running total of the previous chapter, Jurassic World: Dominion which finaled at $376.8M.
NEON’s Together is sixth with $2.2M today, between $6M-$7M over 3-days and $10M-$11M over 5 days. On the high-end, that’s about par with Midsommar‘s Wednesday through Sunday take of $10.9M.
FRIDAY AM: The first weekend of August begins with DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s The Bad Guys 2 stealing $2.25M from showtimes that began at 2 p.m. Thursday, which is higher than the first Bad Guys‘ $1.15M Thursday in 2022, which turned into a near-$8M first day and $23.9M in a recovering post-Covid box office. The outlook on Bad Guys 2 in regards to tracking was $20M.
Production cost on Bad Guys 2 is $80M net, $10M higher than the first movie, which repped a rebound for the Covid box office, that pic ultimately minting $97.4M domestic and $252.4M worldwide. The sequel’s Rotten Tomatoes critics score is 85% fresh, which is 3 points under the 88% certified fresh of the first film.
Paramount, on the precipice of its merger with Skydance, is trying to bring the big-screen comedy back to life with its reboot of 1980s classic The Naked Gun, that Liam Neeson-Pamela Anderson movie doing $1.6M last night from shows that started at 7 p.m. Comedy comps are hard, but The Naked Gun isn’t that far from Sony’s R-rated Jennifer Lawrence movie No Hard Feelings, which did $2.15M on its Thursday (4 p.m. start-time) previews in 2023 and turned into a $6.3M Friday and $15M 3-day at 3,344 sites. That’s what hoped for here on this redo directed by Akiva Schaffer and produced by Seth MacFarlane. Net production cost is $42M.
The Naked Gun had a good night in PostTrak exits with 4½ stars and a 73% definite recommend. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film won over critics, a near-impossible feat when it comes to comedy, at 90% certified fresh with an 87% audience score.
Alison Brie and Dave Franco in ‘Together’
Neon
Neon’s wide release of the Dave Franco-Alison Brie romantic horror movie Together grossed $1.35M in its second day at the box office for a running cume of $4M. The forecast is $8M-$10M over five days for the movie, which Neon snapped up for $16M out of Sundance. The last five-day genre movie that comes to mind is A24’s Midsommar, and Together, which has higher Rotten Tomatoes critics and audience scores (91% critics/79% audience to Midsommar‘s 83% critics/63% audience) is currently $300K behind that 2019 Ari Aster film. As we told you Thursday, Together gets a C+ CinemaScore, same grade as Midsommar.
It’s all about the second weekend of Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which ends the week with $158.3M after an estimated $7.4M Thursday, -14% from Wednesday. The second-frame outlook is $45M-$47M for the net $200M-budgeted movie, which is around a 61% decline. The Matt Shakman-directed reboot keeps all the premium screens.
Gowtam Tinnanuri’s Kingdom opened Thursday, making $1.1M at 360 locations. The pic follows an undercover cop who is plunged into Sri Lanka on a covert mission to dismantle a powerful syndicate. He learns the mastermind is his estranged brother, forcing him to confront family loyalty, and the moral cost of duty.
Here’s the top 5:
1.) The Fantastic Four: First Steps (Dis) 4,125 theaters, Thu $7.4M (-14% from Wed), Week $158.3M/Wk 1
2.) Superman (WB) 3,930 theaters, Thu $2.66M (-10%), Wk $37.7M (-57%), Total $302.3M/Wk 3
3.) Jurassic World Rebirth (Uni) 3,550 theaters, Thu $1.54M (-7%), Wk $20.3M (-43%), Total $308.9M/Wk 4
Let the record show that 2025 now has four movies that grossed north of $300M at the domestic B.O., also inclusive of Superman, Lilo & Stitch and A Minecraft Movie.
4.) F1 (Apple/WB) 2,615 theaters, Thu $750K (-13%), Wk $9.8M (-36%), Total $169.1M/Wk 5
5.) Smurfs (Par) 3,504 theaters, Thu $715K (-28%), Week $9.3M (-15%), Total $26.7M/Wk 2
