After a blip that allowed another film to sell some tickets, “Deadpool & Wolverine” returned to the top of box office charts in its fifth weekend of release. Marvel’s superhero adventure towered over the (albeit anemic) competition as two newcomers, “The Crow” and “Blink Twice,” misfired in their debuts.
Director Zoe Kravitz’s twisted thriller “Blink Twice” led among new releases but faltered in fourth place with $7.3 million from 3,067 theaters. Meanwhile, Lionsgate’s R-rated reboot of “The Crow,” starring Bill Skarsgård as a murdered musician who is resurrected to avenge the deaths of himself and his fiancée, bombed with $4.6 million from 2,752 theaters to open in eighth place. Critics were fonder of “Blink Twice” compared to “The Crow,” as the former landed a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes while the latter was saddled with a 20% “rotten” score. Audiences were mixed, giving both films a “B-” grade on CinemaScore. So, it remains to be seen how word-of-mouth will affect the rest of their theatrical runs.
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“The Crow,” a grizzly reimagining of the graphic novel-turned-1994 film, cost $50 million to produce. It’s the second consecutive miss for Lionsgate following this August’s “Borderlands,” which tumbled to the wasteland of 16th place with $500,000 from 1,147 venues in its third weekend of release. The $115 million-budgeted video game adaptation, starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart and Ariana Greenblatt, is one of the year’s biggest flops with $15 million in North America and $23 million worldwide. In the case of “The Crow,” Lionsgate is only distributing the film after acquiring U.S. rights for roughly $10 million.
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“Blink Twice” didn’t resonate internationally either, bringing in $6.7 million from 73 territories for a global start of $14 million. The film is the directorial debut of Kravitz, known for her roles in the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise, Matt Reeves-directed “The Batman” and Steven Soderbergh’s crime drama “Kimi.” The R-rated psychological thriller “Blink Twice” follows a tech billionaire (Channing Tatum, Kravitz’s fiancée) who invites a cocktail waitress (Naomi Ackie) to his private island for a luxurious party where things begin to take a sinister turn. “Blink Twice” reportedly carries a $20 million budget before reshoots, so it’s not catastrophically positioned in its theatrical run despite failing to hit double digits in its debut. Amazon MGM is distributing the movie in the U.S. while Warner Bros. is handling the theatrical rollout in the rest of the world.
“This is an average opening for an original crime thriller,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. However, he believes “Blink Twice” will benefit from its theatrical run. “It’s going to raise the film’s profile in every ancillary market it plays in, and eventually lift it to profitability.”
Overall, this was the third-lowest grossing weekend of summer with $94 million in revenues across all films in the marketplace. After late-season surge from “Inside Out 2,” “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Twisters” and “Despicable Me 4,” the domestic box office is 13.8% behind 2023 and 25.8% behind 2019, the last pre-COVID year. Yet movie theater attendance may remain light until Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” lands on the big screen in early September.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” reclaimed No. 1 with $18.3 million from 3,840 locations in its fifth frame, dropping just 39% from last weekend. The R-rated comic book sequel, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, has generated a mammoth $577.2 million in North America and $1.21 billion globally to date. It’s the second-highest grossing movie of the year following Disney’s Pixar adventure “Inside Out 2” ($1.64 billion). “Deadpool & Wolverine” now stands as the eighth-biggest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, having passed “Captain America: Civil War” ($1.155 billion) and will soon overtake “Iron Man 3” ($1.215 billion) to claim the No. 7 spot.
Last weekend’s champion “Alien: Romulus” dropped to second place with $16.2 million from 3,915 theaters in its sophomore outing. Those ticket sales mark a 62% decline from opening weekend. So far, the newest chapter in Disney and 20th Century’s sci-fi horror saga has collected $72.6 million domestically and $225 million worldwide.
“It Ends With Us,” too, paced ahead of “Blink Twice” and “The Crow” as the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s literary sensation secured the No. 3 spot with $11.8 million from 3,839 venues. After three weekends of release, “It Ends With Us” has amassed a stellar $120.8 million in North America and $240 million globally.
Biblical drama “The Forge” rounded out the top five with $6.6 million from 1,818 locations over the weekend. The faith-based movie, backed by Affirm Films and released by Sony, has been embraced by audiences, who awarded “The Forge” an “A+” on CinemaScore. Directed Alex Kendrick, the spinoff to the director’s 2015 feature “War Room” follows a directionless high school graduate named Isaiah, who gets a push to start making better life decisions. It cost $5 million.
“The faith-based audience loves this movie [and] the production budget was small,” says Gross. “‘The Forge’ is going to do well after all domestic ancillary income is counted.”
