A Quiet Place: Day One set a franchise record this weekend, but it was no match for Inside Out 2, which held on to the top spot.
The weekend box office results are in, and as we predicted earlier this week, Pixar’s Inside Out 2 was able to hang on to the top spot, earning a strong $57 million in its third weekend, bringing its domestic total to an outstanding $469 million. To put that number in context, it’s already grossed over $100 million more than the first film did in its entire North American run. It received heftier than expected competition from A Quiet Place: Day One, which set a franchise record with an outstanding $53 million gross. Clearly, the slow start to the summer box office has turned a corner, with audiences finally hitting theatres again.
However, adult-oriented fare seems to be struggling, with Kevin Costner’s three-hour passion project, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, only earning $11 million this weekend. That’s a low result for a movie that Kevin Costner invested a significant chunk of his own money in, but hopefully, word of mouth will pick up over the next few weeks. Whatever the case, Horizon: Chapter 2 is slated for an August 16th debut, so it’s full steam ahead on the sequel. With a little less competition in the dog days of summer, maybe audiences will discover Costner’s franchise a little later, but this is still a troubling start for such an ambitious franchise.
Another poor result for adult-oriented fare is Jeff Nichols’s The Bikeriders, which made a decent $10 million debut last weekend but lost a massive 66% of its audience to fall to sixth place with only $3.3 million. It’s already set for VOD, so hopefully, audiences who missed it in theatres will give it a chance at home.
Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die continued to post strong numbers, with the $10.35 million weekend bringing the domestic gross to $165 million. It won’t end too shy of the $206 million total of Bad Boys For Life back in 2020, which is great for a thirty-year-old franchise.
One of the more surprising entries in the chart this weekend was the Telugu-language Indian film Kalki 2898 AD, which made a really solid $5.4 million domestically, with an $11 million total. It’s already one of the 10 highest-grossing India-made movies at the North American box office and should climb even higher in the coming weeks. Another movie from India, the Bollywood film Jatt & Juliet 3, also showed up in the top 10, coming in ninth place with $1.5 million.
Meanwhile, The Garfield Movie stayed in the top 10, making $2 million for an $89 million domestic total. With steep family competition from IF (which dropped out of the top 10 this week), Inside Out 2 and next weekend’s Despicable Me 4, don’t expect this one to cross $100 million domestically. Disney’s hit Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes came in 8th place with $1.7 million for a $168 million total. Finally, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness expanded to 490 theatres this weekend and came in 10th place with $1.5 million, for a total of just over $2 million. That’s a good number, but it won’t come anywhere near Lanthimos’s total for Poor Things, which was a mighty $34 million. This one will likely top out at just a fraction of that, although as far as arthouse releases go, that’s not a bad number. Still, Disney might have been smarter to give this one a fall release, with Jesse Plemons generating Oscar buzz for his triple role.
Next weekend should be another big one at the box office, with Despicable Me 4 primed to rule the holiday box office. Do you think it’s opening gross will come anywhere near what Inside Out 2 opened with? Let us know in the comments!