Box Office Report: Daddy Longlegs

To the surprise of nobody, the minions continue to reign over us with a yellow fist. Despicable Me 4 made $44.65 million in its second week of release, bringing its domestic gross to $211.1 million so far. Worldwide, this franchise is a runaway train. It’s already the fifth-highest-grossing movie of 2024 so far, putting it ahead of both Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Bad Boys: Ride or Die. It’s got $437.8 million in the bank so far, so it’s got a while to go before it comes close to the $1.35 billion that Inside Out 2 is swimming in.

The big surprise of the weekend was the success of the horror film Longlegs. Neon went to town with its marketing campaign for what was sold as the scariest movie of the year, and it paid off. Osgood Perkins’ film cost about $10 million to make, and it debuted at number two with $22.6 million from 2,510 theatres. That’s a record for its distributor.

Things weren’t so good for Fly Me to the Moon, a space-race rom-com starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum. A $10 million debut for a $100 million is, well, ouch. Apple made this so they have money to burn.

Indian 2, a Tamil action film, is a sequel to the 1996 film Indian. It was initially a six-hour film (?) but the distributors split it into two, with the next part set to come out in 2024. In India, it received the highest first-day gross for a Tamil film in 2024, and in the US, it made $1.2 million from 525 theatres.

Disney put The Lion King back into theatres (don’t worry, it was the original) and brought in a nice $1.076 million for their troubles. Touch, an Icelandic romantic drama from the director of Everest, grossed $470,000.

A24 is betting big on Sing Sing, a biographical drama starring Colman Domingo. It premiered at TIFF 2023 to huge acclaim (I was there!) and was immediately launched into awards contention for 2024. They’re planning a slow-burn release over the Summer and into the traditional Oscar season, so it will be interesting to see if it can maintain its momentum. It opened strongly though, with $137,119 from four locations.

In further limited release news: the romantic drama Dandelion, starring KiKi Layne, earned $65,538 from 446 locations; National Anthem, about a construction worker who joins a community of queer ranchers and rodeo performers, made $42,400 from four cinemas; documentary Eno brought in $14,446 from one place; another documentary Water Brother, about the life of surfer Sid Abbruzzi, made $12,699; and yet another documentary, Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, grossed $7,083.

This coming week sees the release of Twisters. Yes, plural.

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