In yet another “if you release enough movies, you’ll make more than enough money” weekend in North American theaters, this weekend’s domestic totals will end up at around $184 million, which will be 62% above last year’s $113 million Fri-Sun totals. Apples-to-apples comparisons are challenging, as sometimes weekend 23 is right after Memorial Day weekend, and sometimes it’s two weekends after. However, if we’re talking “weekend 23 that is two weeks after Memorial Day weekend, $184 million will be the second-biggest unadjusted total for this respective frame aside from 2022. However, even then, Jurassic World Dominion’s $145 millon debut and Top Gun: Maverick’s $51 million third-weekend gross accounted for 91.2% of a $215 million overall Fri-Sun total.
The #3 movie was Doctor Strange 2 with $5 million in its sixth weekend, and everything else below $3 million. This time? The top two movies (Scary Movie 6 with around $55 million and Masters of the Universe with around $30 million) will account for just 45% of the overall total. And there will be four movies this weekend that earn over $25 million (or, uh, $24.999 million if Obsession doesn’t surprise us yet again) and another Fathom Entertainment early debut of a YouTube web series finale that might’ve had it not earned $8 million of its over/under $24 million debut on Thursday. Dammit, Jax, wrecking it for everyone yet again, but… we’re still not giving up on you.
Not every overall weekend will notch these kinds of all-timer totals. However, the sheer volume and variety of movies in the marketplace means that Universal’s Disclosure Day can open closer to Minority Report than The Lost World, that Lionsgate’s The Furious can (barring a miracle) earn less than Mortal Kombat: Annihilation’s opening day (recall that Kill opened below $1 million in July 2024 and that The Raid 2 earned $2.6 million overall in 2014*), and that, yes, even Amazon MGM Studios’ (surprisingly good and enjoyable) Masters of the Universe can, as predicted for 15 years, potentially open barely over/under the likes of John Carter, Warcraft, Dolittle and Tron: Ares without imperiling the entire theatrical ecosystem.
*Related, but that’s why one of my favorite jokes in Scary Movie 6 was the implicit acknowledgment that (quality notwithstanding) nobody in the real world actually saw It Follows.
