The domestic debuts of three recently released films have been met with resounding failure. An estimated $54 million is one of the lowest grossing weekends of the year. The Invitation, a horror film released by Sony to mixed reviews and a meagre $7 million from more than 3,100 cinemas, took the top place practically by accident. George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing and the John Boyega-led heist drama Breaking, the weekend’s other new releases, both fizzled out quickly after their debut.
Bullet Train and Top Gun: Maverick, two games that had previously had spots in the top five, were able to maintain their places thanks to this. The Invitation, directed by Jessica M. Thompson, reportedly had a budget of just $10 million, so it won’t have to fight too hard to recover expenditures throughout its theatrical run. But opening day moviegoers gave the Dracula remake (featuring Game of Thrones’s Nathalie Emmanuel) a dismal CinemaScore, which isn’t fantastic for a movie that’s already having trouble attracting viewers. Miller’s first film since his groundbreaking action spectacle Mad Max: Fury Road, Three Thousand Years of Longing, opened in over 2,400 theatres but only managed to finish seventh with $2.87 million in its first three days of release, a terrible result for any film playing that wide and especially concerning for a visually arresting original picture from a beloved auteur.
There’s almost no way the Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton-starring drama will break even during its theatrical release, given its projected $60 million budget. In fact, Elba’s second film, the survival thriller Beast, which was also released last week, finished four positions higher with $4.9 million, bringing its total domestic gross to just under $20 million. Even with rave reviews, the true story Breaking bombed at the box office in its first weekend. The drama placed thirteenth with little over one million dollars from nine hundred and two venues. With $5.6 million in its fourth weekend, Bullet Train debuted at number two. Brad Pitt’s action thriller about a Japanese assassin is struggling at the box office, having only earned $78 million in the U.S.
In contrast, Maverick has a long way to go. The most grossing film of the year landed in fourth place with $4.7 million in its fourteenth weekend of release, bringing its domestic total to more than $691 million. There’s a near 100% chance that this movie will become one of the few to ever gross over $700 million in the United States. Maverick might become the fifth most grossing picture of all time in the United States if it surpasses Black Panther’s $700 million. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, the weekend’s top earner until it tanked, finished out the top five with a $4.5 million gross despite a 78 per cent drop in ticket sales.
It won’t be until late September that the Olivia Wilde-starring psychological film Don’t Worry, Darling hits theatres, at which point the market should begin to recover.