Box Office Report: Off To Work We Go

Spring has officially sprung and Jason Statham is on the prowl. Sometimes, we, the people, just want a movie where he punches people, places, and things (bees optional.) Clearly, audiences were in that mood this past weekend, as his latest film topped the box office. A Working Man didn’t get great reviews, even by Statham joint standards, but he’s enough of a name to draw in a solid audience during a quieter weekend with a mid-budget flick. It made $15,215,874 from 3,262 cinemas.

That was enough to put it ahead of Snow White, which plummeted 66.4% from its opening weekend. The blame game started with fingers unfairly being pointed at Rachel Zegler and not, you know, it being a not very good movie that nobody was clamouring for. Leave her alone, you weirdos.

At number three is The Chosen: Last Supper, yet another cinematic release for this wildly popular TV show about Jesus and his antics. I imagine the last supper is like the Avengers: Infinity War of the narrative. This show has now gained enough mainstream cultural attention for its stars to go on the talk-show circuit and get magazine profiles. It’s also big enough to draw in a weekend box office gross of $11,492,369 (I love it when the numbers are super specific.)

The horror film The Woman in the Yard is at number four with $9.45 million from 2,842 locations. That puts it well ahead of the much-hyped Death of a Unicorn, courtesy of A24. This one was positioned as a potential mainstream hit for the indie giant but middling reviews seem to have hit it hard. It only earned $5,787,425 from 3,050 cinemas. That’s pretty harsh.

It looks all the worse when you see the number five entry, the legendary Princess Mononoke. The 4k restoration of one of Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpieces made just over $4 million from only 330 places. That’s a per-screen average of $12,134!

In other not-great news for A24: remember Opus with Ayo Edebiri? It was released three weeks ago then sorta disappeared? It has plummeted to number 30 on the box office rankings, dropping almost all of its theatres in only its third week of release. Its current gross is about $1.93 million. Oof.

The Penguin Lessons, a biopic dramedy about a man who adopted a penguin, landed at number 11 with $1,206,842 from 1,017 theatres.

In limited release news: dark comedy The Ballad of Wallis Island made $92,000 from four cinemas; The Encampments, a documentary about student protests against the attacks on Gaza, grossed $76,419 from one place; The Friend, starring Naomi Watts as a woman who is tasked with looking after her late friend’s giant dog, earned $66,853 from two theatres; Andy Kaufman documentary Thank You Very Much took in $17,104.

This coming week sees the release of A Minecraft Movie. Not the Minecraft movie.

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