Box Office Report: Blue Versus Pink Versus Gray

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | August 21, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | August 21, 2023 |

After over a month of undisputed dominance at the box office. Barbie was finally toppled by its Warner Bros. contemporary, Blue Beetle. The latest DC film, which was initially produced for HBO Max before being bumped up to theatrical, opened soft but it was enough to jump to number one. It grossed $25.4 million from 3,871 theatres. Sadly, it always seemed like Warner Bros. was ditching this one, even before the Summer of Barbenheimer became a thing. Their refusal to pay their workers properly didn’t help because this one could have used a strong promotional rollout. See, AMPTP, it matters when you fairly compensate your employees and they’re able to do their jobs.

Five weeks in and Barbie and Oppenheimer are still pulling in the numbers. The former soared past $567 million domestically while the latter hit $285 million. Those are especially exciting grosses for Oppenheimer because it’s rare for a movie to make this kind of money without ever having been number one at the box office. The movie also soared past Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse to become the fifth highest-grossing movie of 2023 so far. It’s only a couple million short of Fast X. Sorry, Vin. Barbie still has about $70 million to go before it can defeat The Super Mario Bros. Movie as the biggest hit of 2023 but it is slowing down now. It’s not out of reach but it will take a real push, especially since Warner Bros. is gearing up to get it on streaming services soon.

Opening at number five is Strays, the raunchy dog movie that the universe somehow willed into existence, with $8.3 million from 3,223 theatres. Sure. OK.

The biggest limited release of the weekend was the re-release of Oldboy, the now-legendary Park Chan-wook thriller that essentially blew the doors open for South Korean cinema in Hollywood. This is a movie that demands a big-screen experience, so it’s no surprise to me that it pulled in $495,000 from only 250 theatres.

In other limited news: alien comedy Landscape with Invisible Hand earned $93,610 from 304 cinemas, while the indie horror Birth/Rebirth made $48,077 from 137 locations.

This coming week sees the release of the political biopic Golda, the comedy Bottoms, and the video game racing adaptation Gran Turismo.

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