After posting an historic first week at the box office where Barbie became the highest domestic opening ever for a non super hero film or sequel in addition to posting the best Monday and Tuesday totals in Warner Bros history, it would seem momentum has not died down as the Greta Gerwig directed film is set to post a second weekend in the $90-$94 million range (per deadline). This is where I may toot my own horn just a little. On Thursday, when we post our predictions for the weekend, tracking had Barbie’s second weekend between $70-$80 million, that number just seemed too low to me considering those weekday numbers.
So now we are seeing early estimates for the weekend at that $90-$94 million range, and I’ll be honest, I think it is possible we see Barbie get to $100 million in its second weekend. That is how massive this movie has become. By the end of the weekend the film is expected to be right around the $700 million mark at the worldwide box office, which I don’t think anyone thought was going to happen when a big screen adaptation of Barbie was announced!
Barbie and Oppenheimer are combining for the largest second week pre-sales in history which is putting Christopher Nolan’s tale of the creation of the worlds first atomic bomb at around $46 million for its sophomore frame, which is an incredible hold for a 3-hour film that doesn’t feature anyone in spandex. I think audiences are taking advantage of seeing this movie in Imax, whether that is traveling hours to see it in one of the 19 domestic theaters playing it in 70mm Imax or just heading out to your local cinema that has its own Imax theater (which some have dubbed LieMax, although it is still a nice large screen) people realize that seeing a film in a premium format can be fleeting. Just look at Barbie, the film is going to be one of, if not the biggest release of the year, and it lost a lot of its premium screens this week to Haunted Mansion.
So, about Haunted Mansion… it would seem that it isn’t holding those premium screens the way Disney may have hoped as at my local theater I have already begun seeing them slowly putting Barbie back in those screens as Haunted Mansion appears to be a bust. With a budget around $150 million, the adaptation of the popular Disney Theme Park ride (and remake of the 2003 Eddie Murphy film) is looking to open around $25 million. To put that into perspective, that Eddie Murphy film, that cost $90 million and was dubbed a bomb back in 2003, opened to $24.2 million, and that is when the average ticket price was $6.03 (compared to 2023’s $10.53). Perhaps releasing this film in July and not October was a big mistake, but knowing Disney, the theatrical release was all just used as marketing for the film to play on Disney+ in October. You can check out Chris Bumbray’s 5/10 review here.
The big miss for me this week in terms of my predictions was the new A24 horror film Talk To Me. I had only seen limited marketing and expected the film to come in around $3-$4 million for the entire weekend. Well, the film actually managed $4 million in just its opening day and is expected to hit around $10 million for the weekend. That is solid for a film with a reported budget of under $5 million.
Is seeing a delightful feature film in your plans for the remainder of the weekend? 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 run down on this weekend’s box office numbers.