Global Courant
In a box office upset, Sony holdover Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse edged out Pixar’s Elemental to win the weekend all the way in its fourth outing.
Spidey took in an estimated $19.3 million as it raced past the $300 million mark domestically to finish Sunday with a North American total of $317.1 million.
Elemental took in an estimated $18.5 million upon falling only 39 percent in its second weekend, a strong hold after suffering the worst start in the modern history of Pixar. The film’s hold means it’s being helped by strong word of mouth. The pic’s domestic 10-day total is $65.5 million.
The news for DC and Warner Bros.’ big-budget superhero pic The Flash — which opened last weekend opposite Elemental to a sobering $55.1 million — grew worse as it fell off 72 percent to $15.3 million for a domestic cume of $87.6 million. Unlike Elemental, The Flash received poor exit scores. (The studio had hoped for a decline of 55 percent.) Insiders concede the film is a huge miss and is being totally rejected by audiences. The Flash stars Ezra Miller, who faced a number of personal issues and was unable to do press.
With two summer tentpoles — The Flash and Elemental — doing far less business than expected overall, weekend revenue came in at 20 percent behind last year and 47 percent behind 2019. Or, put another way, not one film earned more than $20 million during a prime June weekend.
The Flash barely beat new entry No Hard Feelings, Sony’s comedy starring Jennifer Lawrence.
No Hard Feelings opened to an estimated $15.1 million, ahead of expectations in a good sign for a raft of raunchy, R-rated comedies opening this summer (at the same time, the film hardly did the kind of business the genre once enjoyed.) In Gene Stupnitsky’s movie, Lawrence stars alongside Andrew Barth Feldman in the story of a woman hired by an awkward teen’s parents to boost his confidence by dating him.
Numbers for the top movies could shift once the weekend actuals are tallied.
Like No Hard Feelings, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City also did better than expected as it expanded nationwide. The Focus Features pic came in No. 6 with an estimated $9 million for a domestic cume of $10.2 million. Asteroid City marks a record for Anderson. “It’s fantastic to see the best weekend that Wes Anderson has ever had at the box office to reignite the specialty marketplace,” said Focus president of distribution Lisa Bunnell.
More to come.
