Box Office Report: Snooze

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | September 2, 2024 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | September 2, 2024 |

Hoo boy, it was a quiet weekend. It’s a transitional period for the box office: the summer is over but awards season hasn’t kicked in yet (at least for the masses: Venice, Telluride, and TIFF are about to explode), so studios can use this moment to dump all the releases that they’ve all but publicly declared to be stinkers. That also means that the blockbusters of the summer had no real competition so they could coast to solid weeks with smaller grosses.

Deadpool & Wolverine made $15.1 million in its sixth week of release. That brings it within sneezing distance of $600 million domestic. It’s still about $400 million behind Inside Out 2 for the crown of the biggest movie of 2024. You shall never escape Ryan Reynolds.

The highest-placed new release of the weekend was… Reagan. Starring Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan. And Justin from Wizards of Waverly Place as young Reagan. And Scott Stapp from Creed as Frank Sinatra. Directed by the guy who made The Even Stevens Movie and Aliens Ate My Homework. Apparently, it’s a real movie and not an extended Onion bit. I wonder how much time the movie dedicates to Ronnie’s total blanking of the AIDS epidemic. Or Nancy’s throat GOAT reputation. Anyway, despite such illustrious potential, Reagan only debuted in fourth place with $7.4 million.

Debuting at number nine is Afraid, an AI-themed horror movie starring John Cho that I’m reasonably sure none of us had even heard of until, like, four days ago. That’s reflected in the numbers since it only made $3.7 million from 3,003 theatres.

1992 is a drama starring Tyrese Gibson and the late great Ray Liotta, wherein a single father tries to protect his son as riots break out in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict. It earned $1.365 million from 875 cinemas. Right behind that is City of Dreams, a drama about human trafficking that has widely been decried as right-wing propaganda (one of its producers is Vivek Ramaswamy, yikes.) It earned $1,272,377 from 774 locations.

Hey hey, did you know that Shaun of the Dead is 20 years old now? The ravages of time spare nobody, not even zombies. Edgar Wright’s best film (come at me) got an anniversary re-release in 113 cinemas and earned $600k.

In limited release news: The space drama Slingshot made $485,282 from 845 theatres; drama Tokyo Cowboy earned $21,010 from two places; and the documentary Seeking Mavis Beacon, about the search for the woman who was the face of the popular typing tutorial program, brought in $9,062 from one theatre.

This coming week sees the release of horror movie The Front Room and the long-awaited Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Spooky season is officially here!

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