As September transitioned into October this past weekend, Paramount Pictures released Parker Finn’s high-concept horror movie “Smile” into 3,650 theaters on Friday. The horror film starring Sosie Bacon, Kyle Gallner, Caitlin Stasey, Kal Penn, Jessie T. Usher and Rob Morgan took in $2 million in Thursday previews, leading to an estimated $8.2 million on Friday. “Smile” then became the only movie in the month of September to cross $20 million with an estimated three-day opening of $22 million, as it also became a rare horror film to bring in more business on Saturday than Thursday and Friday.
“Smile” went into the weekend with decent reviews and 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, but then received a “B-” CinemaScore, which is on par with Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling” and Ti West’s prequel, “Pearl.” Normally, that wouldn’t be a good sign for legs, although 20th Century’s “Barbarian” received a “C+” score and that did decently in its second and third weekend due to strong word-of-mouth.
“Don’t Worry Darling” took a massive plunge in its second week, dropping to second place with $7.3 million, down 62% from its opening. So far, Wilde’s thriller starring Florence Pugh and Harry Styles has grossed $32.8 million, and it only has one more week to make some dough before it loses theaters to a few franchise films. The critically panned film added another $6.4 million internationally to bring its global total to $54.7 million.
Viola Davis‘ historic war epic “The Woman King,” directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, took third place with an estimated $7 million, down just 36% in its third weekend. Its $46.7 million domestic total is the best for any movie in the top ten opening after Labor Day. The well-regarded flick that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is showing signs of word-of-mouth business after receiving a rare “A+” CinemaScore.
Billy Eichner’s romantic comedy “Bros” was released by Universal Pictures into 3,350 theaters, but it didn’t do nearly as well as many hoped as the first studio-produced romantic comedy starring a gay male lead. Unfortunately, it wasn’t able to find much of an audience, making $1.8 million on Friday (including $500,000 from Thursday previews), and ending up with just $4.8 million for the weekend. (It was one of my first major mea culpas of the season, since at one point, I thought it might beat “Smile,” after attending the comedy’s TIFF premiere, though I had already dialed back my prediction going into the week.)
Even so, the Eichner comedy, directed by Nicholas Stoller (“Neighbors”) and produced by Judd Apatow, scored solid reviews, as well as receiving an “A” CinemaScore, so maybe it will be able to bring in some word-of-mouth business ala the other TIFF premiere, “The Woman King.”
SEE 2022 box office hits: Every movie that made more than $100 million this year
The re-release of James Cameron’s “Avatar” dropped 55% down to fifth place with $4.7 million, just behind “Bros,” to bring the domestic take for the re-release to $18.6 million in two weekends. Cameron’s sci-fi epic grossed another $12.3 million overseas in its second weekend, bringing the international gross for the re-release to $58.1 million, so far. That’s on top of the $2 billion it had made in previous releases since 2009.
Sarigama Cinemas released Mani Ratnam’s Bollywood epic “Ponniyin Selvan: Part I” (aka “PS-1”) into 445 North American theaters on Thursday. Without any significant marketing to non-Indo-Americans, the movie still scored an estimated $4.1 million to open in sixth place. Its $9,000 per-theater average would be the best showing in the Top 10 this weekend. (Another Hindi-language film from Bollywood, “Vikram Vedha,” was released by Reliance into 558 theaters, but that ended up grossing $1 million and not getting into the top ten.)
20th Century’s horror film “Barbarian” dropped to seventh place with $2.8 million (down 42%) and a domestic total of $33.1 million for the month of September.
Still playing in 1,913 theaters, Brad Pitt’s action film “Bullet Train” maintained its business with a 22% drop to eighth place with $1.4 million this weekend, having crossed $100 million with $101.3 million.
On Wednesday, I suggested this might be the first weekend in which “Top Gun: Maverick” finally drops out of the Top 10. Instead, it remained steady with $1.2 million, which should be enough for 10th place.
The majority of players had “Smile” in first place for this week’s box office prediction game with under $25 million, but many (including your truly) had “Bros” taking second place and “Don’t Worry Darling” in third place whereas Olivia Wilde’s movie actually took second place. 38 players got that right, while only 24 players (about 13% of total players) had “The Woman King” correct in third place. Nine people predicted correctly that “Bros” would open outside the Top 3 in fourth place. Unfortunately, the single player who picked “None of these” for fifth place just narrowly missed getting that point when it looked like “PS-1” might make it into the Top 5. Instead, “Avatar” took fifth place with a little less than half the players picking that correctly.
Just two players went six for six in the September 23 box office game: “NathanOsborne” and “UmOkaaayyyyy.” Great job, guys!
Next Friday, Sony releases the first family film in months with “Lyle, Lyle Crocodile,” while 20th Century releases David O. Russell’s star-packed crime-comedy, “Amsterdam.” Look for our thoughts on both in the weekend box office preview on Wednesday.
