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Challengers Cast Getty.jpg

Box Office Report: Game Set Match

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | April 29, 2024 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | April 29, 2024 |


Challengers Cast Getty.jpg

Your options this past weekend were sexy tennis drama or a wholesome movie about Australian Christian singers. Oh gee, which movie took the top spot?

Challengers easily won the weekend. The horned-up tennis film, featuring Zendaya in her first leading movie role, earned over $15 million from 3,477 theatres. That’s good news, of course, although it’s also worth noting that this film cost a reported $55 million. Once upon a time, that sort of mid-budget adult-oriented film would be a safer bet, but such titles really took a hit with audiences over the past decade, and post-lockdown numbers made it harder to turn a profit. It’s not impossible, of course, and this one has such strong word-of-mouth that it wouldn’t surprise me if it had a slow-burn theatrical release. Mostly, however, I expect Challengers to do its biggest business on streaming. It’s an Amazon/MGM title and I guarantee it’ll do gangbusters there in the vein of Saltburn.

On the flip side, there is Unsung Hero, inspired by a Christian pop group called For King & Country. The band members themselves helped to write and direct this thing, which also stars Candace Cameron Bure and Terry O’Quinn. The audience for this thing is clearly very specific and not one with a ton of crossover with Challengers. Its reported budget is $6 million, and in its opening domestic weekend, it earned $7.75 million. Job well done.

The hyper-stylized action film Boy Kills World opened in 1,993 at number ten with $1,675,475. That put it just ahead of a re-release of Ridley Scott’s Alien, which made $1.56 million from 1,750 theatres. We were also treated to a theatrical re-release of The Mummy, which is now 25 years old. The passage of time spares nobody, but it did give one of my favourite action movies an extra $1 million in the bank.

Dune: Part Two remains the top-grossing film of 2024 so far, with over $704.2 million to its name. Behind it is Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire with $519.3 million. Both are Warner Bros. films, so perhaps Zaslav won’t delete them both from existence.

This coming week sees the release of the horror film Tarot and the action-comedy The Fall Guy.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.