In holdover news for the weekend, Jared Leto’s Morbius nose-dived in its second frame, earning just $10.2 million for a $57.1 million ten-day total. That’s a 74% drop from its $39 million debut, which is the biggest drop ever for any “big” comic book superhero movie, including the infamous likes of Dark Phoenix, Fantastic Four, Batman v Superman, Hulk and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Technically, it’s second among all wide-release comic book superhero movies behind Steel ($191,667 in weekend two from an $870,068 debut in 1997), but Morbius is “tops” among anything remotely tentpole/blockbuster-ish for the genre. This should give a cold shower’s worth of reality to anyone arguing that the film’s halfway decent opening weekend meant that audiences liked the film that much more than critics.
It’s now almost guaranteed to earn less domestically in total than did Venom on its $80 million opening weekend. While the solid opening was due to decent marketing, inherent interest in Marvel movies and earned goodwill from Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I’d argue this result is what most of us pundits expected in terms of Sony’s “Spider-Man villains get their own solo movies” releases. Maybe Venom, featuring a genuinely popular character with a well-liked actor (Tom Hardy) going full-Venom, was an exception to the rule. Here’s hope Aaron Johnson’s Kraven (opening in January of 2023) shows otherwise. fans only really wanted him specifically as a Spider-Man baddie. The $75 million movie has now earned $126 million worldwide.
Warner Bros.’ The Batman earned another $6.5 million (-41%) for a $359 million domestic and $735 million worldwide cume. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore had a soft start overseas with $58 million, compared to $120 million and $115 million in like-to-like markets for its predecessors. Both due to Covid circumstances and China’s history of eventually saying (comparatively speaking) “no thank you” to strong-in-China franchises (Terminator, X-Men, Transformers, etc.), Fantastic Beasts 3 earned $10 million in China, compared to $36.6 million for The Crimes of Grindelwald. Japan delivered $8.8 million (compared to $7.6 million for its predecessor), but the film earned just $8 million in the UK (compared to $16 million for its predecessor). Barring a miracle, we know how this story ends (think Divergent: Allegiant).
The Lost City earned another $9.165 million in weekend three, dropping just 38% despite losing 486 theaters and bringing its domestic cume to $68.854 million. That’s a solid run for the original, star+concept Sandra Bullock/Channing Tatum rom-com adventure. It’s looking like a $90 million finish, but I could see Paramount keeping this one in theaters forever, Spectre-style, to push it over $100 million. Meanwhile, Uncharted earned $2.65 million (-28%) weekend for a $143 million domestic cume. It’ll pass Detective Pikachu ($144 million) next weekend but will get lapped by Sonic the Hedgehog 2 soon after. The $120 million Tom Holland/Mark Wahlberg flick has earned $383.5 million worldwide, passing the $380 million global cume of Black Widow. Spider-Man: No Way Home sits with $804 million domestic and $1.88 billion worldwide.
Meanwhile, the Tollywood action epic RRR will earn $580,000 (-64%) in weekend three for a $13 million domestic total as it passes $132 million worldwide. And Illumination’s Sing 2 crossed $400 million worldwide this weekend, becoming the first such animated film to do so since Frozen II in late 2019. This is an $80 million animated sequel with mixed-positive reviews that has been available on PVOD since its 17th day of domestic release. It has earned $161 million domestic, more than The Secret Life of Pets 2 while now quintupling its budget worldwide. But, please, tell me about how kid-targeted biggies can’t thrive theatrically now. Finally, X has passed $11 million domestic, which is rather good for an R-rated horror movie set on a porn set.
