Super Bowl weekend is notoriously bad at the box office, and the issue was compounded this year by the arrival of the Winter Olympics. As such, moviegoers didn’t exactly flock out to see anything in theaters this weekend, paving the way for Sam Raimi’s Send Help to retake the top spot — just as we predicted earlier this week. With a $10 million second weekend (a decline of only 48% — which is great for a horror/thriller) and a $35 million total, this is proving to be a nice little sleeper hit for the director (it’s his first R-rated movie since The Gift way back in 2000) and for 20th Century Studios, which tends to send most of its films to Hulu.
You can also chalk up another impressive opening for faith-based Angel Studios, with their Kevin James movie Solo Mio opening better than expected with $7.2 million. The studio has had mixed results with its less religious movies, but the Kevin James-led romance did well, posting the same $7.2 million figure (and earning a solid A-minus CinemaScore). The Markiplier-led Iron Lung had a steep drop in week two, pulling in a $6 million weekend for a 67% decline. However, with a $31 million total, don’t feel too bad for Markiplier, who’s more than proven he has an audience willing to support him theatrically, and the film will likely net him a nice chunk of change.
Another unexpected entry into the top five is the K-pop concert movie Stray Kids: Dominate, which is being distributed domestically by Crosswalk, a division of Bleecker Street. It made an excellent $5.5 million stateside and led the global box office with a huge $19 million haul. The top five was rounded out by Vertical’s Dracula, directed by Luc Besson. Despite bad reviews, it’s still posting Vertical’s best opening ever and is well-poised for a successful streaming run.
Meanwhile, Disney’s Zootopia 2 cranked out another $4 million (there’s not much competition out there for family audiences), bringing its domestic total to $414 million. Avatar: Fire and Ash is slowly closing in on $400 million, making $3.5 million this weekend for a $391 million domestic total (and sitting just under $1.5 billion worldwide). Lionsgate’s The Strangers: Chapter 3 had a disastrous weekend, earning only $3.5 million while pulling in terrible reviews (including one from our own Tyler Nichols) and a deadly D CinemaScore. Ouch.
Another movie bombing badly is the Jason Statham-led Shelter, which made $2.4 million with a $890 per-screen average and a $9.9 million total, meaning that outside of Operation Fortune, it’s one of the star’s lowest-grossing vehicles. Part of this may be due to the fact that it comes from Black Bear, a nascent distributor that’s had trouble opening movies wide (their Sydney Sweeney-led Christy was a disaster, though she bounced back with the ultra-successful The Housemaid). They seem to be trying to compete in Lionsgate’s space when it comes to modestly budgeted action movies, but they don’t yet have the marketing apparatus that studio does.
Finally, the top ten was rounded out by Melania, which fell a massive 67% in week two to just $2.3 million, proving it was very front-loaded, with a $13.3 million domestic total.
While this weekend was quiet, expect plenty of fireworks next weekend with two new releases, GOAT and Withering Heights, both of which have a shot at cracking $30 million.
