Box Office Update: Gran Turismo and Barbie duke it out for first

Numbers have begun to roll in and it looks like Gran Turismo will stick to its underwhelming tracking of $15-$17 million after pulling in an estimated $8 million on Friday, which includes the $5.3 million made over the past two weeks of preview screenings. The film has garnered decent enough reviews to nab a 60% rotten tomatoes score including a solid 8/10 review from our own Chris Bumbray. The two factors that actually matter however are the film’s excellent audience score, currently at a 98%, and its budget, which is reportedly around $60 million. Those numbers mean that the film could have some decent legs in the doldrums of the August/ September box office and could potentially see a slow burn to a decent final number. Although I won’t sugar coat it, this opening needed to be higher. 

With such a low opening for Turismo, there is the possibility that Barbie reclaims her throne as the Margot Robbie fronted film is currently looking at a weekend also in the $15-$17 million range. This week Barbie overtook The Super Mario Bros. Movie as the highest grossing film of 2023. We still have a few months to go, but I doubt something like Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will surprise us all and finish with more money than Barbie. Although I am a genuine fan of James Wan, so I bet Aquaman 2 is probably actually going to be good!

Speaking of the DC universe, extended and regular, Blue Beetle is looking to drop a superhero standard 55-65% for a weekend between $10-$11 million. Not the worst DC drop we have seen (that honor belongs to The Flash which suffered a 73% second weekend drop) but definitely not the word of mouth Warner Bros wanted for this non fascist superhero. 

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer will continue its streak of small week to week drops with an additional $7.5-$8.5 million and a six week running domestic total just shy of the $300 million mark. That makes this 3 hour biopic that was too good for Logan Paul to comprehend (may be time to stop getting hit in the head so much sir) Nolan’s third highest grossing film ever at the domestic box office, with only Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises holding down higher takes.

Fifth place will be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem with an additional $5-$6.5 million as it nears the century mark at the domestic box office. The new Liam Neeson actioner, Retribution, which Chris Bumbray did not enjoy, giving the film just a 4/10 rating, is coming in with just around $3 million. It may be time for Neeson to switch gears. The guy is an awards caliber performer, somebody send him some scripts worthy of his talent.

The big x-factor for the weekend is still to come as tomorrow sees the second annual National Cinema Day which will see all tickets for all movies in all formats going for just $4 a ticket. Perfect day to take the whole family to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or to check out Gran Turismo in a premium format. Perhaps seeing Barbie or Oppenheimer again is in the cards (unless you’re Logan Paul, in which case I’m sure SpongeBob SquarePants is on TV somewhere. Which isn’t a dig at the pineapple living underwater sponge, I’m just saying, their plots aren’t exactly hard to follow!)

As of yesterday, pre-sales for National Cinema Day were outselling today’s ticket sales by over 700%. Last year saw over 8 million tickets sold on that Sunday and it sounds like this year will see similar, if not greater, numbers.

Do you plan on heading to theaters for National Cinema Day? If so, let us know what you plan on seeing in the comments and don’t forget to check back tomorrow when we have a full rundown on this weekend’s box office numbers.