So far, the Summer Movie Season has brought some exciting box office stats. It seems that every weekend, we have a new milestone or fun fact to bring to readers about how a film performed in theaters. This weekend really isn’t one of those weekends. Unfortunately, what should have been an interesting frame at the box office has turned into, well, a bummer.
First, we have the second weekend for Lucasfilm’s “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” The film is coming off a less-than-stellar (to say the least) Memorial Day weekend, underperforming to a degree that sent box office analysts into a tizzy. But for Disney and Lucasfilm, there was always the chance that ‘Solo’ could rebound and have a great second weekend. Well, that didn’t happen.
READ MORE: Disney Exec Blames ‘Avengers’ And ‘Deadpool 2’ For Dismal ‘Solo’ Box Office
Weekend estimates give ‘Solo’ a $29.3 million frame, domestically, for a #1 finish at the box office. That equates to a little over -65% from last weekend, and a dismal $148.9 million total. As we mentioned Friday, this weekend was going to be a good barometer to see how the film would fare in the long run, and judging by its second frame, things aren’t going to be looking up for ‘Solo’ anytime soon. There were analysts that predicted a range from $30 million to $50+ in the second weekend. Once again, the “Star Wars” film failed to live up to expectations.
Overseas wasn’t any better for the sci-fi/fantasy film. ‘Solo’ pulled in an additional $30.3 million internationally, putting its worldwide total gross at $264 million. As we have speculated, it appears that ‘Solo’ is fading quickly and will have a very hard time getting close to $500 million by the end of its run. With a rumored budget approaching $300 million, this can’t be seen as anything other than a massive disappointment for Disney and Lucasfilm. But as an executive said last week, they have about a year and a half to figure out what went wrong, especially internationally, before ‘Episode IX’ hits theaters.
READ MORE: ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ & The Inherent Problem With Prequels
Coming in at #2 this weekend, and giving ‘Solo’ a run for its money, was “Deadpool 2.” The hard-R superhero flick has been struggling to keep pace with the first film in a franchise but has been holding strong weekend-to-weekend, nevertheless. In its third weekend, “Deadpool 2” pulled in another $23.3 million, a very respectable -46.3% drop from the last frame. Currently, the film has pulled in $254 million domestically, on its way to clearing $300 million. With a worldwide total already at $546 million, and a budget of only $110 million, Fox can already rest easy knowing that ‘DP2’ is another hit for the franchise.
Surprisingly, we had a bit of a fight for #3 this weekend between newcomer “Adrift” and box office behemoth “Avengers: Infinity War.” The Shailene Woodley romance/drama “Adrift” ended up winning the spot with a weekend total of $11.5 million. While maybe not as strong of an opening as studio STX was hoping for, with only a $35 million budget, the film is in perfectly fine shape right now.
As you might surmise, that means #4 was ‘Infinity War,’ in its 6th weekend. The Marvel Studios epic grossed another $10.4 million this weekend, bringing its ridiculous domestic total to $643 million. ‘Infinity War’ has its sights set on “Jurassic World” ($652 million) and “Titanic” ($659 million) as it looks to become the #4 film all-time. Worldwide, another milestone looks to be approaching soon, as the film inches closer and closer to the coveted $2 billion mark, with a six-week total of $1.965 billion.
There were two more debuts at the box office this weekend, with very different results. At #6, there’s the BH Tilt microbudget, futuristic action film, “Upgrade.” The film, from director Leigh Whannell, pulled in $4.5 million this weekend. While not a huge total, given that the film has a reported budget under $5 million and the marketing costs were also very low, the film is on its way to being yet another profitable Blumhouse release. If you’ve been sleeping on this film or been skeptical (like us), “Upgrade” currently holds an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience score of 91%. So, it seems that its well worth checking out.
The other major release is Johnny Knoxville’s latest film, “Jackass: The Themepark” aka “Action Point.” The film came in well under expectations with a total of $2.3 million at #9. This is not a great start at all for the film, which was promoted almost as the fourth “Jackass” film. However, the R-rated comedy failed to click with audiences, as the film had an abysmal $1,139 per theater average. That ranks it below the per-theater averages of “Rampage” and “A Quiet Place” this weekend, which are two films that have been in theaters 8 and 9 weeks, respectively.
On the other end of the per-theater spectrum was Orchard and MoviePass Ventures’ new film “American Animals,” which grossed $35,157 per theater at only 4 locations this weekend. That’s good news for the film, as it starts to open wider in the coming weeks.
Next weekend looks to shake up the top 10 in a big way, with the debuts of the all-star “Ocean’s 8,” the critically-acclaimed horror film “Hereditary,” and the actioner “Hotel Artemis.”
Here’s the rest of the top 10 for June 1 to 3:
1. Solo: A Star Wars Story — $29.3M ($148.9M Overall)
2. Deadpool 2 — $23.3M ($254.6M)
3. Adrift — $11.5M (Debut)
4. Avengers: Infinity War — $10.4M ($643M)
5. Book Club — $6.8M ($47.3M)
6. Upgrade — $4.5M (Debut)
7. Life of the Party — $3.5M ($46.3M)
8. Breaking In — $2.8M ($41.3M)
9. Action Point — $2.3M (Debut)
10. Overboard — $1.98M ($45.5M)