Box Office Breakdown for Weekend of 5/12/24

Movies

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Kingdom of the Planet of the Wins Sees Franchise Worst, But Wins Weekend

Despite the fact that the new Planet of the Apes film is easily winning the weekend and doing better than initial projections, it is still the weakest opening for the reboot of the franchise. Making roughly $56.5 million domestically, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes sold roughly 4,346,154 tickets, which is 2 million less total tickets sold in the opening weekend of the final film in the Caesar trilogy, War for the Planet of the Apes, which sold roughly 6,272,344 tickets back in 2017. We are continuing to see the biggest IPs struggle to get anywhere close to the glory of previous films, whether comparing numbers adjusted for inflation or looking at ticket sale estimates. There is also the budget issue for this latest film, as it cost roughly $160 million to produce. This means Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes needs to make somewhere between $400-$500 million worldwide just to break even, depending on where it ends up making most of its money. Seeing that the franchise has been trending down domestically and has consistently made most of its total box office from the international markets means that the film will likely need closer to $500 million to break even. 

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the first Planet of the Apes film under the Disney regime since it took over 20th Century Fox, which is now called 20th Century Studios. The one bright spot for the company – which last year had 0 films that made any profit at the box office – is that according to the-numbers and IMDB, Kingdom has a few production companies listed other than Disney and their subsidiaries. This could mean that the studio can make some profit off of the film from those deals rather than from the movie itself. Only time will tell, and this is mostly speculation at this point.

According to the-numbers.com the top 5 this weekend domestically were:

1. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ($56.5 million as a new release)
2. The Fall Guy (51% drop in 2nd weekend)
3. Challengers (38% drop in 3rd weekend)
4. Tarot (47% drop in 2nd weekend)
5. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (44% drop in 7th weekend)

The Fall Guy is a Fun Film, But is Ultimately a Box Office Flop

The opening weekend for the new Ryan Gosling film, The Fall Guy, was very underwhelming. Based on the second-weekend numbers (which, percentage-wise, are not too bad), we can now confirm that based on its budget and likely marketing spend, the film will end up losing quite a bit of money. Needing to make well over $330 million just to break even, my charts indicate that The Fall Guy will likely only make between $148 to $207 million worldwide by the end of its run. The film has received generally positive reviews, though many who are being honest have rightfully criticized it for overspending and ultimately not being worth the now very costly price of going to see it theatrically. In an age where movies not only need to have good word of mouth and a modest budget, most films, if they wish to be successful, also need to feel like they have to be seen on the big screen, which is not an easy task. The Fall Guy will very likely end up losing between $50 and $100 million by the time it leaves theaters, though I do suspect it could have a decent run on PVOD and streaming. As usual, we will have to wait and see.

Next week, we will see the release of the new John Krasinski film IF and a prequel to The Strangers, which, according to early box office tracking, are expected to make around $29 million and $10 million at the domestic box office, respectively.

For video coverage of this weekend’s box office, check out my latest video HERE.

If you want further analysis on these or any other films, check out the full charting I do over at my website. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and as always, God bless!

(If you ever want further insight into my methodology, see my previous articles HERE and HERE and the RCC method I use to break down movies internationally HERE.)