Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | August 25, 2025
It was expected to be a quiet weekend at the box office. The end of August is a liminal period, with the Summer blockbusters done and awards season around the corner. If you’re a streaming service looking to make history with a surprise hit then this is the time to do it, KPop Demon Hunters has become an unexpected mega-hit for Netflix. The animated movie has quickly become the platform’s most popular original movie (maybe grade that on a curve since its competition was Red Notice) and it’s even making history on the Billboard charts with its soundtrack. Audiences wanted to see it in cinemas so, for once, Netflix obliged. It paid off because the movie debuted in the top spot with a comfortable $18 million from 1,700 locations. Don’t expect Netflix to see this strategy and commit to it, alas. Any cinematic releases they give their original films will be briefer than any fan wants.
Way down in number nine is the next highest-grossing new release of the weekend, Honey Don’t!, directed by Ethan Coen. Reviews for this one were pretty mid, and audiences didn’t seem interested, so it only grossed $2.95 million from 1,317 cinemas. That’s better than Relay, starring Riz Ahmed and Lily James. That one debuted at number 11 with only $1,927,941.
At number 14 is Eden, directed by Ron Howard and starring Ana de Armas, Jude Law, Sydney Sweeney, and Vanessa Kirby. A cast like that would surely have inspired more attention than it got. But this one played at TIFF last year to very little buzz, and reviews didn’t improve after that, so it was dumped in only 664 cinemas and earned just over $1 million for its troubles.
Ne Zha 2 may be the biggest film of 2025 by a wide margin, but it seems that American audiences were not interested in its English dub. A24 got Michelle Yeoh on board for this one, but a lack of wide marketing and the sheer difficulty in selling a sequel to a movie most of your target demographic hasn’t seen clearly made an impact. It only earned $1,547,499 from 2,228 theatres.
Universal must have been feeling hopeful for a Judd Apatow renaissance, as they put The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Trainwreck in 800 theatres each. It didn’t really work. The former earned $35,000 while the latter only brought in $13,000.
In limited release news: the thriller Trust, starring Sophie Turner, earned $240,276 from 432 theatres; Dakota Johnson’s Splitsville took in $105,572 from five cinemas; the thriller Lurker snatched up $64,436 from four locations; and indie drama Pools dived to a $10,875 opening from one cinema.
This coming week sees the release of the divorce comedy The Roses, the Darren Aronofsky crime caper Caught Stealing, and the ooey-gooey horror comedy remake The Toxic Avenger.
You can check out the rest of the weekend box office numbers here.
