TAGGED AS: Box Office, movies, news
As much as we wanted to believe that the upcoming live-action adaptation by Disney was going to provide a spark to the theatrical box office, that was pretty much quashed this weekend. Sure, it had the second best opening of the year, but then you realize Den of Thieves 2 is currently the fifth best of 2025 and you go ho-hum instead of hi-ho. Yes it could be the second film (or maybe even the third) to gross $100 million, but these films have been good for at least twice that or even more. Here we are looking towards the end of March with 10 of the 11 weekends at the box office earning less than $100 million, with hopes that Minecraft will be the blockbuster theaters need.
It should be noted that 2024 did not hit a $100 million three-day weekend in its first two months, but then hit three in March thanks to Dune: Part Two, Kung Fu Panda 4, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. The discussion looms about audiences embracing original entertainment outside the comfort of their own homes, but until then, we have Disney’s Snow White opening to $43 million, well below the hopeful $50+ million that tracking was suggesting. It is also well below the recent spate of live-action remakes of Disney animated films, including The Jungle Book ($103.2 million), Beauty and the Beast ($174.7 million), Aladdin ($91.5 million), and The Little Mermaid ($95.5 million). This is more along the lines of Dumbo territory, and even that was higher with $45.9 million.
Dumbo finished out its run with $114.7 million domestic and cleared over $238 million overseas. So it was a bomb, but a quaint bomb with a $170 million budget compared to what Snow White could be with a budget reportedly as high as $270 million. That would put it among the 15 most expensive motion pictures ever, up there with other Disney misfires like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and The Marvels, which, by the way, also opened higher with $46.1 million but carried the same $270 million price tag. Snow White should still be better than that (starting with $44.3 million overseas), but to even be in the same conversation should be a red flag. Marc Webb’s film has been beset with bad ink ever since its inception, from Peter Dinklage’s comments about its portrayal of dwarfism to reactions to Gal Gadot’s thoughts on Gaza. Reviews have not been great, and the only live-action film since 2000 to open in March with less than $50 million and gross over $150 million was Wild Hogs. That won’t do for Snow White. That won’t do.
Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag was expected to open in the $6 million range at the top of last weekend. It slightly exceeded that with $7.5 million, providing hope that word-of-mouth was starting to do the job on one of the very best reviewed films of the year (and Soderbergh’s career). This week it is down to $4.4 million, which amounts to just $14.8 million total to date. Some films deserve better, and this is one that should get discovered over the course of the year and maybe even into awards season. Though its $50 million budget is no positive number for Focus Features, they are hoping it could be just their fifth film since the start of 2024 to gross over $20 million. Nosferatu and Conclave last year were the studio’s highest grossers since the Downton Abbey sequel in 2022. Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders got over that hump last year and Last Breath got there this weekend as well. Those last two were also budget-tiered flops. If there is any hope for low-to-mid-budget adult fare, films like Black Bag and Focus’ next limited release, The Ballad of Wallis Island (also one of the year’s best-reviewed films), need to find their audiences.
Hanging on for its sixth week in the top five, Captain America: Brave New World moved back up to third place with $4.1 million as it tries to keep alive hopes of hitting $200 million domestic. Right now it is about $17 million off the pace of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, losing ground during the week but picking a little back up over the weekend. Ant 3 had just a $2.4 million sixth weekend. The numbers still suggest a finish between $195-200 million but we shall see. It did, however, just cross the $400 million mark worldwide.
Last week’s under-$10 million box office winner, Novocaine, fell all the way back to fifth this week with under $5 million. A 57% drop down to $3.7 million in weekend two brings the film to $15.7 million. That’s a little better than the other Jack-Quaid-with-girlfriend-problems film this year, Companion, which made $15.4 million in its first 10 days. Novocaine is now looking at around $20-22 million domestic with just an additional $3 million so far internationally. Perhaps it will find new life when it becomes available on PVOD shortly.
The best news for Warner Bros. about Mickey 17 is that Snow White may now be considered the biggest bomb of the year for the time being. Not that the bottom line gets any better, because $3.9 million in its third weekend brings the film to just $40.2 million after 17 days. The $118 million production just crossed $110 million globally. Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite cleared $200 million overseas alone. The studio’s woes don’t end there though.
You may be forgiven if you didn’t want to rush out to see Barry Levinson’s The Alto Knights. The long gestating passion project of Robert DeNiro (in a dual role) opened to just $3.1 million. For those counting their mob payouts, that’s only $1.4 million higher than Gotti, the John “Wild Hogs” Travolta passion project that maintains its 0% rating on the Tomatometer (The Alto Knights, at least, has earned a few more positive reviews than that). The $45 million production is looking at a domestic gross of less than $10 million. That makes two big losers in a row for Warner Bros. and five of their last six, including Joker: Folie a Deux, Juror #2 (entirely their fault for burying a solid Clint Eastwood film), and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. Amazingly their biggest success since Beetlejuice Beetlejuice last September has been this year’s low-budget Companion. But now WB is probably hoping for the success of Minecraft even more than theaters.
Ketchup Entertainment rescued The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie from the WB dumping ground. They are now in talks to do the same for Coyote vs. Acme. Hopefully audiences will reward that investment in the future, because they certainly are not for the one currently in theaters. In its second week, Daffy and Porky made just $1.8 million for a 10-day total of just $6.4 million. Reportedly they are offering $50 million for the next one. We can have nice things, but we have to go to the movies.
Family audiences instead rewarded Dog Man, which will be the third-highest grossing film of the year, assuming Snow White surpasses it. But give it up for the animated crossbreed which now has a total over $95 million domestic. That’s more than double what Paddington in Peru has mustered. In its sixth weekend, the bear in the raincoat fell out of the top 10 with $1.3 million to get to just $43.6 million. The last two Paddington films combined grossed less than Dog Man domestically. Tenth place went to The Last Supper with $1.34 million, bringing its total up to $4.4 million. What you will discover shortly is that it is hardly the last Last Supper. Just ahead of them was Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey making $1.5 million; it’s domestic total now stands at $37.8 million.
Locked from distributor The Avenue with Bill Skarsgård and Anthony Hopkins opened to $964,000 in 971 theaters. Compare that to Flying Lotus’ sci-fi film, Ash, with Eiza Gonzalez and Aaron Paul, which opened in 1,136 theaters and made just $716,000 for IFC Films. Not much better was the release of the long-delayed Magazine Dreams with Jonathan Majors, which was picked up and subsequently dumped by Searchlight Pictures after the actor’s personal conduct issues were unearthed and made $700,000 in 815 theaters. Last week’s opener, Opus, fell 72% down to $282,000 and has grossed just $1.8 million.
Roadside’s release of Tracie Laymon’s Bob Trevino Likes It with Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo opened to $58,138 in just 5 theaters, the second-best per-theater average this week below only the documentary Secret Mall Apartment, which grossed $40,500 in just a single theater. Sideshow/Janus Films’ release of Alain Guiraudie’s Misericordia opened to $25,000 in 3 theaters on the coasts. Meanwhile, the documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin brought its total over $10 million this weekend and the Oscar-winning Anora passed $20 million on Monday.
Snow White will go for the repeat next weekend (it will be something if it doesn’t), but which of the new releases will rise to second? After the success of The Beekeeper, the reteaming of Jason Statham and David Ayer may have the edge with A Working Man. Don’t rule out the popularity of the episodic The Chosen getting its latest theatrical run with Last Supper, not to be confused with the recent release of The Last Supper. A24 hopes that the pairing of Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd in the high-concept comic horror film Death of a Unicorn will be a hit with audiences after its debut at SXSW. Blumhouse’s The Woman in the Yard from director Jaume Collet-Serra is being hidden from the press. Also look out for the aforementioned Focus release, the charming music comedy The Ballad of Wallis Island, which has been a hit with critics.
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast. [box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by Marcos Cruz/©Paramount Pictures
