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X Men Dark Phoenix.jpg

Box Office Report: 'Dark Phoenix' Flames Out Hard

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | June 9, 2019 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | June 9, 2019 |


X Men Dark Phoenix.jpg

It was not a good weekend at the box office. The top ten are doing a lot better than that of this time last year, but neither of the week’s two major releases had grosses to write home about. In the end, the race to the top between The Secret Life of Pets 2 and Dark Phoenix wasn’t even close, but the final results were subpar. The Secret Life of Pets 2 brought in around $47.1 million to take the top spot, but that’s less than half what the original movie made in its opening weekend. Seriously, The Secret Life of Pets was a very big deal, with a $104.3 million opening weekend, which is still a record for an original animated feature. That the sequel couldn’t even make half of that three years later is kind of stunning. Given how much Universal are hoping these Illumination animations will become long-term nostalgic favourites for theme park rides and the like, this doesn’t seem like good news.

Of course, it still did better than Dark Phoenix. They wanted a $50 million opening weekend. They got around $33 million. Ouch. That’s about half of what X-Men: Apocalypse made in its opening weekend. Box Office Mojo are already predicting that this one won’t even make $100 million domestically, which is an unmitigated disaster. Just as well Disney doesn’t have anything invested in this one, eh?

By contrast, Disney’s Aladdin continues to do incredibly well. Three weeks in and it’s got $232.3 million in the kitty domestically, and it’s soared past $604 million internationally. Want some perspective on that? Well, Disney’s other 2019 live-action remake, Dumbo, has only made $113.8 million domestically and that’s been out for almost three months. Its worldwide gross is just over $350 million. Ouch.

Aladdin also managed to hold onto the third spot, while last week’s number one, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, dropped 67.5% from last week to fall to number four. It’s around $100 million off making its budget back domestically.

Rocketman dropped from three to five, with $14 million, and it’s already made its budget back domestically, but I’m curious to see how this thing holds on commercially as we go into summer. It’s an immensely enjoyable film and one that’s far better than some musical biopics we could talk about, but perhaps Elton John’s music doesn’t hold as much sway over the public as, say, the music of Queen. That may be a deciding factor in its replay value in cinemas. But you should go see it. It’s great fun!

Opening at number 16 is Mindy Kaling’s Late Night, which took in a mightily impressive $249,654 from only four theatres, suggesting this thing could do very well once it opens wider. A24’s latest, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, also did impressively, with over $230k from seven theatres.

This coming week sees the release of Jim Jarmusch’s zombie flick The Dead Don’t Die, the reboot of Shaft, and bisexual fantasy Men in Black: International.

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

What films did you watch this weekend? Let us know in the comments.



Header Image Source: Fox // Disney