Box Office Report: Saw Patrol

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | October 2, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | October 2, 2023 |

It’s the biggest weekend of the box office weekend, guys. It’s Saw Patrol! What? You know, Saw Patrol? The dueling releases of Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie and Saw X? Okay, this wasn’t a thing, although a few people on Twitter did try to make it one. Sorry, ‘we’ve got Barbenheimer at home’ but you just didn’t have it.

It was no surprise that, between the family movie based on a wildly popular kids’ animated series and the super-violent horror sequel, the former won out this past weekend. Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie made $23 million from 3,989 theatres. That’s about $10 million more than the first movie made in its opening weekend, although that was a pandemic release. I am a cynical adult so this film is clearly not for me but every person I know under the age of 6 (which, admittedly, isn’t many) was hyped as hell for this.

Saw X saw the return of Jigsaw and is being heralded as a comeback for the franchise, even though we had Spiral in 2021. Remember Spiral with Chris Rock? Well, Lionsgate doesn’t want to. It’s back to basics here, and fans were happy with that. It debuted at number two with $18 million from 3,262 locations. It’s currently the sixth highest-grossing horror franchise of all time.

At number three is The Creator, the sci-fi drama by Gareth Edwards and starring John David Washington. Disney didn’t really do much to get the word out with this one, and reviews were middling, although there were good write-ups here and there, as well as words of encouragement for an original sci-fi property not tied to any pre-existing IP. A $14 million opening weekend for an $80 million budget isn’t brilliant but this could do decently in the long term. Well, assuming Disney doesn’t pull it from theatres as quickly as possible to get it onto Disney+.

At number five is The Blind, a piece of religious propaganda about the people from Duck Dynasty. Yikes. It made $4,139,791 from 1,715 theatres. Nothing like watching actively bad entertainment to trigger the liberals, right?

The documentary Carlos, about musician Carlos Santana, did good numbers with $367,043 from 541 cinemas. I’m sure they would have preferred to release it before he got weirdly transphobic. In other limited release news: Dark comedy thriller The Kill Room, starring mother-daughter team Uma Thurman and Maya Hawke, grossed $87,105 from 355 cinemas; drama Story Ave with Luis Guzman made $9,852 from one theatre; and Before the Sunset, which has nothing to do with the Richard Linklater film, earned $5,696 from four locations.

This coming week sees the release of The Exorcist: Believer, the Peter Dinklage quirky romance She Came To Me, and the delightfully titled Dicks: The Musical.

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