Arriving in theaters in mid/late July, Greta Gerwig's Barbie became an instant phenomenon, breaking a whole bunch of box office records – but it is also proving to be a long-term success that is dominating late summer. After becoming the 51st movie ever to earn $1 billion last weekend, the film has continued to crush all big screen competition and maintain its spot as the #1 film in the United States and Canada.
Check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis.
Barbie Wins Its Fourth Box Office Crown, Which Is The Same Number Earned By The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Neither Justin Simien's Haunted Mansion nor Danny and Michael Philippou's Talk To Me could do it. Neither Jeff Rowe's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem nor Ben Wheatley's Meg 2: The Trench could do it either. And now André Øvredal's The Last Voyage Of The Demeter has become the latest wide release to fail while attempting to unseat Barbie at the top of the box office. The blockbuster has had another brilliant Friday-to-Sunday stretch according to The Numbers, and it's added another $33.7 million to its domestic box office total.
To contextualize just how well the film is doing by 2023 standards, if another movie opened with the amount of money Barbie brought in this weekend (again, in its fourth weekend of release), it would rank as the 17th best start of the year – ahead of Patrick Wilson's Insidious: The Red Door (which you may remember took the number one spot when it opened in July).
The Margot Robbie-led feature has now tied Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic's The Super Mario Bros. Movie as the 2023 title with the most weekends at #1, and it has a pretty good shot at holding the record by itself in the near future. While the animated video game film hit a brick wall when the month of April ended and James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 arrived in theaters, Barbie doesn't have that kind of hyped competition ahead of it.
Next weekend, it will be going head-to-head with Angel Manuel Soto's Blue Beetle (another Warner Bros. release), and if the on-going trend of DC flops continues, Greta Gerwig's blockbuster will win its fifth box office crown.
So what will be the film that unseats Barbie from its spot at the summit of the Top 10? Unless there are some big surprises in the coming weeks, the answer may be Antoine Fuqua's Equalizer 3 starring Denzel Washington, which will be in theaters on September 1.
With the $33.7 million in ticket sales this past weekend, the domestic gross for Barbie is now up to $526.3 million. That puts it only about $48 million away from topping the earnings of The Super Mario Bros. Movie earlier this year – so look for headlines about that happening in the weeks to come.
Globally, Barbie has now made $1.2 billion, which is another total still just short of beating The Super Mario Bros. Movie for the #1 spot in the record books. It's about $175 million away from that milestone.
All time (not accounting for inflation), the new blockbuster now ranks as the 25th biggest film of all time, having just surpassed the worldwide earnings of Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda's Minions and Joe and Anthony Russo's Captain America: Civil War.
The Last Voyage Of The Demeter Fails To Garner Much Interest And Settles For A Fifth Place Start
Part of the reason why Barbie was able to have yet another big weekend is because there wasn't anything new doing a particularly great job of stealing eyeballs. Universal Pictures was hoping that The Last Voyage Of The Demeter would perhaps put up a fight, but the only fresh title in wide release from this past Friday had to settle for third place.
With its $6.5 million start, the Dracula film only made about half of what Meg 2: The Trench did in its second weekend (the Megalodon-centric blockbuster dipping a big 58 percent following its theatrical premiere). The studio couldn't have had super high expectations for the release, but it's still quite rough.
This is typically the part of the article where I say something along the lines of "The silver lining for the horror movie is that the production costs were low – which means there still exists the possibility for it to make a profit"... but I can't say that in this particular case. Despite having no A-list talent in the cast and almost the entire moving taking place in a single location (the titular ship), The Last Voyage Of The Demeter somehow managed to cost $45 million to make (per Deadline). Unless the film shocks the world but doing exceptionally well overseas, this title looks like it is going to be one of the biggest flops of the year.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Can't Beat Barbie And Oppenheimer, But It Still Had A Solid Second Weekend
Closing things out on a positive note is the performance by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem in its second Friday-to-Sunday. The critically acclaimed animated feature didn't have a standout debut at the start of August, making less than Meg 2: The Trench and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, but it appears as though that the franchise reboot may have some solid legs under it. The Jason Statham action movie may have dropped 58 percent in its sophomore weekend, but Mutant Mayhem was able to move from fourth place to third place because it only dipped 44 percent.
Adding $15.8 million to its domestic total, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem has now made $72.8 million in the United States and Canada, and before the end of the week it should be the latest 2023 blockbuster to earn nine-figures globally (it presently sits at $94.7 million). It's been a good season for animation – with other hits including Peter Sohn's Elemental and Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, and Kemp Powers' Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse.
Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next weekend to discover how the aforementioned Blue Beetle and Josh Greenbaum's dog-centric comedy Strays shake things up in the Top 10, and head over to our 2023 Movie Release Calendar to discover all of the big titles still set to come out between now and the end of the year.
