🎟️ Box Office Breakdown: A not-so-fantastic second weekend drop…

The Dailies

The Dailies reports on the latest box office news from this week.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (Disney)

1. 🦸‍♂️ The Fantastic Four: First Steps: (Wk 2) $40M domestic weekend (-66%), $198.4M domestic total, $368.7M global. Marvel's latest took a huge tumble in week two, right in line with other recent MCU flops like ‘Quantumania’ (-70%) and ‘Captain America 4’ (-68%). Good reviews didn't help much. At least it's already beaten every previous ‘F4’ movie (the best only made $333.5M worldwide back in 2005).
2. 🐺 The Bad Guys 2: 🆕 $22.2M domestic opening, $44.5M global debut. DreamWorks' sequel matched the 2022 original—not great when you're hoping for franchise growth. This is the first sequel to an animated movie that launched after COVID, and unlike ‘Moana 2’ or ‘Spider-Verse,’ two years of kids watching it on streaming didn't translate to bigger theatrical demand.
3. 🔫 The Naked Gun: 🆕 $17M domestic opening, $28.5M global debut. Liam Neeson's comedy got great reviews (90% RT) and opened in line with projections. It’s also Neeson’s best solo opening in 10 years. More on this one below.
4. 🦸‍♂️ Superman: (Wk 4) $13.9M domestic weekend (-44%), $316.2M domestic total, $551.2M global. DC's latest holds steady, closing in on ‘The Batman's’ (2022) $369M domestic total.
5. 🦖 Jurassic World Rebirth: (Wk 5) $8.7M domestic weekend (-34%), $317.6M domestic total, $766M global.
6. 👫 Together: 🆕 $6.8M domestic weekend ($10.9M since Wednesday opening). Neon paid $17M for this body-horror movie at Sundance. Critics loved it (91% RT) but audiences gave it a C+. Not bad for Neon, but nothing like their Oz Perkins movies (‘Longlegs’ opened to $22.4M).
7. 🏎️ F1: The Movie: (Wk 6) $4.1M domestic weekend (-35%), $173.3M domestic total. Brad Pitt's racing drama just became his highest-grossing film ever, beating ‘World War Z.’
8. 🔪 I Know What You Did Last Summer: (Wk 3) $2.65M domestic weekend (-49%), $29.4M domestic total.
9. 🔵 Smurfs: (Wk 3) $1.77M domestic weekend (-68%), $28.5M domestic total.
10. 🐉 How to Train Your Dragon: (Wk 8) $1.35M domestic weekend (-53%), $260.4M domestic total.

The big picture: Weekend total was $123.7M, down 27% from last year. ‘Fantastic Four’s’ front-loaded performance suggests it basically just played to the Marvel faithful and then crashed. It may have been too soon to declare superhero fatigue over after ‘Superman’s’ success. Turns out audiences are picky about which heroes they'll pay to see. Summer's hit $3B at the box office, but we're still way behind pre-pandemic levels.

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