Box Office Report for the Week of April 21

To the surprise of no one, Alex Garland‘s Civil War is the number one film of the weekend once again and gained some serious legs with only a 56% drop and a $11 million tally, already on track to make its money back and setting the stage as the highest-grossing A24 movie ever. Perhaps it’s caused massive online discourse, but it is translating to ticket sales, which is always good for the studio.

This weekend was highly diversified for mid-budget fare, if you lived in the United States. I obviously do not want to shy away from the numbers, but I am unfortunately at my wit’s end with the horrible distribution system in Canada that has left the past three Guy Ritchie movies (Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, The Covenant and now The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare) without a theatrical home and relegated it to Prime Video instead.

While this could’ve been an acceptable compromise during COVID, nothing justifies putting films from one of the biggest (and best) filmmakers working today on Prime Video without even specifying your release plans. I wouldn’t be mad if we knew when it would come out on streaming, but the lack of any clear strategy is staggering, especially considering it’s only the case with Guy Ritchie movies. On the flip side, Canada is getting an exclusive theatrical release for Richard Linklater‘s Hit Man since Netflix isn’t taking care of distribution here. A soul for a soul, I guess. Here’s hoping Ritchie’s next movie, which will star Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal, has a theatrical release because a filmmaker like him deserves to have his movies shown in the largest possible environment.

For The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, the film disappointed at the box office, with a $9 million tally, despite early access screenings and decent reviews from critics. With a $60 million budget, the film would’ve absolutely benefitted from an international release, but the powers that be decided not to make a decision that likely would’ve allowed the film to make way more money than it did. Especially with the star power of Henry Cavill and Guy Ritchie in the United Kingdom. It makes no sense to release Ritchie’s films in the UK, even more so when the cast stopped the press to promote the film leading up to its US release.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett‘s Abigail did much better than Ritchie’s film and grossed over $10 million on a modest $28 million budget. Some have said the film underperformed, and it perhaps did, but a $10 million opening for a $28 million budget is still relatively good but the horror landscape is currently too crowded, with The First Omen and Immaculate still raking in money at the box office. I saw the movie today in an empty theater, which is a shame, considering that it is quite good. It also contains a Québécois character (played by French-Canadian Kevin Durand, no less), who says the church word Denis Villeneuve wanted to desperately add in Dune: Part Two. We don’t get this much representation in American cinema (by American filmmakers who did film in Montreal for Scream VI), so definitely go see it if you live in La Belle Province.

SPY x FAMILY CODE: White, the film adaptation of the hit manga and anime series, finally hit North American screens and grossed a pretty decent $4.8 million in 2,009 screens, which includes select IMAX screens. While it may not seem like such a big number, anime titles like these don’t cross over that much and rarely hit the top ten when they do. Of course, with such a big IP like SPY x FAMILY, fans (like me, who reviewed it for the site here) of the franchise are absolutely heading to the theater and seeing the movie.

Here’s the full list of the top ten films of the weekend:

1. Civil War (A24): $11.1M (-56.4%) – 3,929 theatres
2. Abigail (Universal): $10.2M – 3,384 theatres
3. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Warner Bros): $9.4M (-39.2%) – 3,658 theatres
4. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (Lionsgate): $9.0M – 2,845 theatres
5. SPY x FAMILY CODE: White (Sony): $4.8M – 2,009 theatres
6. Kung Fu Panda 4 (Universal): $4.6M (-16.9%) – 2,955 theatres
7. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony): $4.4M (-23.6%) – 3,109 theatres
8. Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros): $2.9M (-33.1%) – 2,014 theatres
9. Monkey Man (Universal): $2.2M (-46.2%) – 2,641 theatres
10. The First Omen (Disney): $1.7M (-55.3%) – 2,430 theatres

Source: Comscore