After his fourth weekend in theaters this year, Shameik Moore’s Miles Morales finds himself back on top at the box office. That's right, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse brought in $19.3 million domestically to lead all of the weekend’s offerings. It was full animation domination, as Elemental made an attempt to rebound from its slow start, earning $18.5 million, falling just short of the top spot in its sophomore weekend. In terms of newer movies, Asteroid City impressed in its first weekend in wide release, and Jennifer Lawrence’s No Hard Feelings kicked off its run in fourth place.
Take a look at the full Top 10 list, then join me below for more analysis:
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Back On Top After Hitting A Big Milestone
The latest comic book movie offering has had an impressive run in its first month in theaters, with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse quickly out-earning its predecessor. The blockbuster now stands at $317 million domestic gross (per The Numbers) whereas its predecessor, Into the Spider-Verse, earned $190.2 million in its entire run. And with its placement in this week’s Top 10, let’s just say the sequel isn’t going anywhere for a while.
After a couple of weeks in the second and third spots on the Top 10, Spidey is back on top, proving that of the big movies hitting theaters this summer, Across the Spider-Verse will have some of the longest legs.
The domestic win comes alongside news that the movie has crossed the $500 million threshold globally. According to Box Office Mojo, the MIles Morales-led sequel has accumulated $560.3 million (compared to Into the Spider-Verse’s $375.5 million over its entire run). That’s good for fourth place this year, behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie (currently at $1.3 billion worldwide), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($828 million) and Fast X ($689.3 million). Given that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s reported production budget was $100 million (per THR), this is a big financial win for Sony Pictures.
Not only is the movie certainly benefiting from word-of-mouth advertising but undoubtedly from repeat viewings as well. It's likely that moviegoers are going back to see what details they didn't notice the first time — especially with the confirmation that there are multiple versions of the movie playing in theaters.
There are still plenty of good movies to come this summer, though, so we’ll have to see where this one shows up on the Top 10 list in weeks to come.
Meanwhile, Elemental saw some hope on the horizon after getting off to a disappointing start last weekend. The Pixar animated movie just barely missed first place in this week’s estimations, bringing in another $18.5 million domestically in its second weekend in theaters. That’s just a 38-percent drop weekend-over-weekend and, and when all 10 days’ ticket sales are added up, the rom-com has more than doubled its initial earnings of $29.5 million for a North American total of $65.5 million.
Elemental’s mediocre debut — the worst in Pixar’s history, when adjusting for inflation — annoyed CinemaBlend’s Dirk Libbey, who explained how audiences have been trained to wait for Pixar movies to arrive on Disney+. He also lamented and that the House of Mouse's marketing department has not done enough to change that, despite the film's original and entertaining love story.
Are this weekend’s numbers an indication that audiences will, in fact, make it out to see the Pixar production on the big screen? Only time will tell, but one thing’s for sure: A romance between fire and water seems more likely than a rebound for The Flash.
After Ezra Miller’s superhero flick failed to meet the $70 million projections on opening weekend — earning just $55.1 million — its second weekend brought even more bad news. It dropped a dismal 72 percent for three-day earnings of $15.3 million. Warner Bros. had hoped The Flash would turn its luck around after losing money on its other recent DC offerings Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods. However, the Scarlet Speedster's second-weekend drop was bigger than its predecessors’, with the Dwayne Johnson flick dropping 59 percent between its first two weekends and the Zachary Levi sequel falling 69 percent.
After 10 days, the superhero movie has accumulated just $87.6 million domestically, and when you add in the $123.3 million from the rest of the world, it’s sitting at $210.9 million.
Asteroid City Continues To Impress, As No Hard Feelings’ Opening Is As Tepid As Its Reviews
Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City broke records in its limited release last week, earning $790,000 from just six theaters, and it continued to impress in its first weekend as a wide release, taking the No. 6 spot with an additional $9 million. The movie, which features an impressive ensemble cast, maintained the highest per-theater earnings of the week’s Top 10 with $5,373 per theater (in second place, for comparison, was Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse with $5,099 per movie house).
No Hard Feelings, meanwhile, debuted to $15.1 million domestically, nearly beating out The Flash in its second week. That was better than the $12 million projected by Variety but surely not what Sony was hoping for, with its budget of $45 million. The premise of the Jennifer Lawrence flick seemed to rub a lot of people the wrong way, but our own Eric Eisenberg just thought it was a dull and generic rom-com, rating it 2.5 out of 5 stars in his review. Other critics seemed to agree that at least Lawrence understood the assignment, but their overall views were mixed.
The summer’s wave of big movies rolls on next week, with Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge starring in the fifth and final installment of the former’s storied franchise — Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. We’ll also get the next DreamWorks Animation offering in the form of Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, in which Lana Condor stars as a shy 16-year-old kraken trying to find her place in the world while also dealing with the pressure of being part of a long line of legendary sea monsters.
These are sure to shake up the rankings, so be sure to come back to CinemaBlend next week to see what it all means! You can also check out what’s in store in the coming months, with our schedule of 2023 new movie releases.
