The weekend box office results are in, and as we predicted earlier this week, Pixar’s Inside Out 2 was able to hang on to the top spot, earning a strong $57 million in its third weekend, bringing its domestic total to an outstanding $469 million. To put that number in context, it’s already grossed over $100 million more than the first film did in its entire North American run. It received heftier than expected competition from A Quiet Place: Day One, which set a franchise record with an outstanding $53 million gross. Clearly, the slow start to the summer box office has turned a corner, with audiences finally hitting theatres again.
However, adult-oriented fare seems to be struggling, with Kevin Costner’s three-hour passion project, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, only earning $11 million this weekend. That’s a low result for a movie that Kevin Costner invested a significant chunk of his own money in, but hopefully, word of mouth will pick up over the next few weeks. Whatever the case, Horizon: Chapter 2 is slated for an August 16th debut, so it’s full steam ahead on the sequel. With a little less competition in the dog days of summer, maybe audiences will discover Costner’s franchise a little later, but this is still a troubling start for such an ambitious franchise.
Another poor result for adult-oriented fare is Jeff Nichols’s The Bikeriders, which made a decent $10 million debut last weekend but lost a massive 66% of its audience to fall to sixth place with only $3.3 million. It’s already set for VOD, so hopefully, audiences who missed it in theatres will give it a chance at home.
Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die continued to post strong numbers, with the $10.35 million weekend bringing the domestic gross to $165 million. It won’t end too shy of the $206 million total of Bad Boys For Life back in 2020, which is great for a thirty-year-old franchise.
One of the more surprising entries in the chart this weekend was the Telugu-language Indian film Kalki 2898 AD, which made a really solid $5.4 million domestically, with an $11 million total. It’s already one of the 10 highest-grossing India-made movies at the North American box office and should climb even higher in the coming weeks. Another movie from India, the Bollywood film Jatt & Juliet 3, also showed up in the top 10, coming in ninth place with $1.5 million.
Meanwhile, The Garfield Movie stayed in the top 10, making $2 million for an $89 million domestic total. With steep family competition from IF (which dropped out of the top 10 this week), Inside Out 2 and next weekend’s Despicable Me 4, don’t expect this one to cross $100 million domestically. Disney’s hit Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes came in 8th place with $1.7 million for a $168 million total. Finally, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness expanded to 490 theatres this weekend and came in 10th place with $1.5 million, for a total of just over $2 million. That’s a good number, but it won’t come anywhere near Lanthimos’s total for Poor Things, which was a mighty $34 million. This one will likely top out at just a fraction of that, although as far as arthouse releases go, that’s not a bad number. Still, Disney might have been smarter to give this one a fall release, with Jesse Plemons generating Oscar buzz for his triple role.
Next weekend should be another big one at the box office, with Despicable Me 4 primed to rule the holiday box office. Do you think it’s opening gross will come anywhere near what Inside Out 2 opened with? Let us know in the comments!
