Box Office Report for the Week of May 19

This week was another slow weekend at the movies, as most of the audience’s attention is diverted onto Cannes Film Festival, where Francis Ford Coppola‘s Megalopolis has shocked audiences and Kevin Costner premieres the first part of his American Saga. Meanwhile, we have movies like IF, Back to Black, and The Strangers: Chapter 1 hitting our screens this weekend. While I’ve not seen any of them (I see The Strangers tomorrow and will probably catch IF next week), the films clearly haven’t inspired audiences as much as Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes or the upcoming The Garfield Movie and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

Make no mistake: The Garfield Movie will be the hit of Memorial Day and will be the highest-grossing animated movie of the year until Despicable Me 4 releases. With that film around the corner and families excited to bring themselves to the cinema to see a brand-new animated iteration of Jim Davis’ iconic orange cat, there was no chance in hell that John Krasinski‘s IF would fare well with families this weekend.

When film critic Scott Mantz asked “What happened?” to Film Twitter as IF fell short of meeting its $40 million opening weekend expectations, the answer is simple: the film’s marketing was not great, and Garfield is right around the corner. It’s another case of the Barbenheimer for Paramount, who programmed Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning the week before the two biggest movies of 2023, and the same can be said for Garfield and Furiosa, who will probably outperform far better than we initially think.

IF still managed to make $35 million and open as the highest-grossing movie of the weekend, but its success will likely be short-lived as bigger family films are on the horizon for next week. Meanwhile, Renny Harlin’s The Strangers: Chapter 1 opened with $12 million, already making all of its budget back and giving confidence to Lionsgate for the sequel to release much sooner than later. Though they will likely experience diminishing returns, since the latest installment in The Strangers franchise has not particularly been well received.

Meanwhile, Back to Black predictably fizzled out with a $2.8 million opening weekend. With already dismal reviews and a lack of willingness for audiences to see it, the film was dead on arrival from the minute it began production. I usually see most studio movies in any given year, but this is one of the few that I will not give my attention to, let alone cover. Asif Kapadia already made the ultimate Amy Winehouse portrait in his Oscar-winning documentary Amy, while Sam Taylor-Johnson‘s biopic looks terribly exploitative (and based on its reception, it looks like it is).

And while I wasn’t a particularly big fan of The Blue Angels, the film exceeded expectations, cracking the top ten with a $1.3 million tally in 227 IMAX theatres. That is very impressive, and a great sign that blockbuster documentaries are working, and there is a home for diversified programming for IMAX. Here’s hoping their next one will be better, but I’ll probably be seated for it no matter what.

Here is the full list of the top ten films of the weekend:

1. IF (Paramount): $35.0M – 4,041 theatres
2. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Disney): $26.0M (-55%) – 4,075 theatres
3. The Strangers: Chapter 1 (Lionsgate): $12.0M – 2,856 theatres
4. The Fall Guy (Universal): $8.4M (-38%) – 3,845 theatres
5. Challengers (Amazon MGM Studios): $2.9M (-33%) – 1,938 theatres
6. Back to Black (Universal): $2.9M – 2,010 theatres
7. Tarot (Sony): $2.0M (-41%) – 2,334 theatres
8. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Warner Bros): $1.7M (-35%) – 1,773 theatres
9. The Blue Angels (Amazon MGM Studios): $1.3M – 227 theatres
10. Unsung Hero (Lionsgate): $1.1M (-57%) – 1,736 theatres

Source: Comscore