Maxance Vincent
It’s been a relatively slow month for the movies, and this weekend has been the most unimpressive yet, with no new releases making a significant impact at the box office. However, there’s good news for Mason Thames, who has accomplished a rare feat: all three films he starred in this year, How to Train Your Dragon, Black Phone 2, and Regretting You, ended up in the top spot of the weekend box office.
Both Regretting You and Black Phone 2 are neck-and-neck, with the former having grossed $8.1 million this year and the latter reaching exactly $8.0 million. However, the rest of the weekend hasn’t had a significant impact or generated anything worthy of discussion.
The 40th anniversary re-release of Back to the Future was expectedly popular, which also included IMAX and 4DX screens, and made over $4.7 million in more than 2,000 cinemas. As for the rest of the movies this week, Bugonia’s tally improved upon its limited release, but the box office landscape this time around is a massive wasteland, which isn’t great for Halloween time.
In fact, the October box office revenue has fallen to a 27-year low, which excludes the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been a rocky moviegoing year, but many titles released this month didn’t resonate with the public, Chainsaw Man aside, which could be perceived as a genuine hit. Awards darlings The Smashing Machine and Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere flopped hard, while the month’s biggest blockbuster, Tron: Ares, will somehow end with a worse tally than Joseph Kosinski‘s Tron: Legacy, which was a moderate box office success.
Here’s hoping that next month, with the release of Predator: Badlands, The Running Man, Wicked: For Good, and Zootopia 2, will give cinemas the much-needed boost of energy they need before the holiday season is in full swing with James Cameron‘s likely record-breaking Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Here is the full list of the top ten films of the weekend:
- Regretting You (Paramount): $8.1M (-41%) – 3,245 theatres
- Black Phone 2 (Universal): $8.0M (-38%) – 3,305 theatres
- Chainsaw Man: The Movie – Reze Arc (Sony): $6.0M (-67%) – 3,003 theatres
- Bugonia (Universal): $4.8M (+576%) – 2,043 theatres
- Back to the Future – 40th Anniversary Re-Release (Universal): $4.7M – 2,290 theatres
- Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (Disney): $3.8M (-57%) – 3,460 theatres
- Tron: Ares (Disney): $2.8M (-43%) – 2,575 theatres
- Stitch Head (Briarcliff Entertainment): $2.1M – 2,162 theatres
- Good Fortune (Lionsgate): $1.4M (-55%) – 2,150 theatres
- One Battle After Another (Warner Bros.): $1.1M (-49%) – 904 theatres
Source: Comscore
I wish I had a better handle on Colleen Hoover‘s whole… “deal,” because she’s a legitimate cultural phenomenon and I have no idea what animates this. I’ve heard her plots are insane, but that describes most trashy airport novels. I’ve seen some howlers posted from her books on social media, but other and better-regarded authors have written some bonkers prose, too. I’ve heard her works described as reactionary propaganda, but again, there’s a whole cottage industry of pop drama books that promote conservative agendas.
What’s made her capture the current literary zeitgeist, here? What is she doing that her peers aren’t?