Box Office Report for the Week of February 1

We’ve finally gotten some exciting movement in the first week of the year where the moviegoing experience seems to be alive and well for new releases, especially for Sam Raimi‘s Send Help. The film has exceeded industry expectations and grossed $20 million domestically on its opening weekend, bringing its global total to $28.8 million on a $40 million budget. It’s a return to the [R-rated] horror genre for one of the great genre masters working today, and audiences seem to be eating up an original film made by an auteur who still has many more great films to make, hopefully much sooner than later.

Speaking of horror cinema, YouTuber Mark Fischbach (also known as Markiplier) released his independent film, Iron Lung, entirely on his own and almost gave Send Help a run for its money. The movie was made under a $3 million budget and grossed $17.8 million in its opening weekend, which is huge for independent filmmaking. It’s probably a more significant achievement in the YouTuber-to-filmmaker pipeline than Chris Stuckmann‘s Shelby Oaks, which did significantly worse despite a more prominent marketing campaign and backing from NEON and Mike Flanagan.

It wasn’t a great time to be Jason Statham this week, as Ric Roman Waugh’s Shelter (his second film this month) opened significantly worse than Greenland 2: Migration, with a meager $5.5 million tally. The film couldn’t surpass Zootopia 2, whose box office rose up 9% and made $5.8 million this weekend, bringing its global cume to $1.7 billion.

Lastly, can you imagine that disgraced sex pest Brett Ratner is attempting a return to Hollywood? Not only that, but his big “comeback” film is Melania, a documentary about U.S. First Lady Melania Trump. Who asked for this, let alone directed by the guy who gave us the Rush Hour trilogy? Literally nobody. However, it seemed the MAGA base came through, as the film slightly overperformed conservative industry expectations of $1 to $5 million, opening with a $7 million domestic total. This wouldn’t be a terrible opening if the film didn’t cost…*checks notes*…$75 million.

For Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, this is nothing, but the film is currently getting destroyed by critics, sitting at 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, with some calling it pure propaganda, going so far as to say they’d rather rewatch January 6th than sit through Melania again… yikes. However, more troubling information has come to light regarding Brett Ratner, whose picture with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has recently been made public after the Department of Justice released millions of files related to the latter. And this guy is apparently doing a fourth Rush Hour film, which was fast-tracked after President Donald Trump told Paramount CEO David Ellison he wanted one.

To say things are bleak would be an understatement…

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

1. Send Help (Disney): $20.0M – 3,475 theatres
2. Iron Lung (Independent Films): $17.8M – 3,015 theatres
3. Melania (Amazon MGM Studios): $7.0M – 1,778 theatres
4. Zootopia 2 (Disney): $5.8M (+9%) – 2,880 theatres
5. Shelter (Black Bear Pictures): $5.5M – 2,726 theatres
6. Avatar: Fire and Ash (Disney): $5.5M (-14%) – 2,800 theatres
7. Mercy (Amazon MGM Studios): $4.7M (-56%) – 3,468 theatres
8. The Housemaid (Lionsgate): $3.5M (-11%) – 2,603 theatres
9. Marty Supreme (A24): $2.9M (-18%) – 1,703 theatres
10. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Sony): $1.6M (-53%) – 2,042 theatres

Source: Comscore