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Wkd Box Office • 05/10-12/24 • Audiences Love Every Ape They See, From Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z

Gentlemen

Gentlemen

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Oct 25, 2017
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Greetings to you all, and a marvelous Mother's Day to everyone. This writeup's going to be somewhat rushed because it's being written the night before and tomorrow I will barely have time to update the thread. I beg for your patience and understanding I got a lot on my plate this Sunday.

The third Monkey film of 2024 is out and it's off to a...decent start. The bad news is that 'decent' isn't good enough anymore. The B CinemaScore means the legs might not hold, even in these very dry, lean times for exhibition. B is lower than almost every other modern Apes film (2001 at B-), and lower than anything directed by Wes Bell to date. It will need those good reviews and amazing word of mouth to match 2017's domestic performance of $146M. If this is an indicator of how everything but Deadpool 3, Inside Out 2, and Despicable Me 4 are going to do, theaters are in for a very, very rough ride.

In case you missed it, Deadline wrapped up its "Most Valuable Movie Blockbuster" top ten for 2023, assembled here for easy browsing: https://deadline.com/story-arc/2023-most-valuable-movie-blockbuster/

#10: Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie
#9: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
#8: Five Nights at Freddy's
#7: Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
#6: Wonka
#5: Oppenheimer
#4: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
#3: Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
#2: Barbie
#1: The Super Mario Bros Movie

We also got a list of the five biggest bombs: https://deadline.com/2024/05/biggest-box-office-bombs-2023-lowest-grossing-movies-1235902825/

#5: Haunted Mansion
#4: Wish
#3: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
#2: The Flash
#1: The Marvels

On a final note, did anybody else get to see Jérémie Périn's masterpiece sci-fi animated noir Mars Express? If not don't worry I'm pretty confident GKids will put out a physical release. I really want a maximum set of people with eyes on this film, it's truly something special.

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On a whole 85% of the CinemaScore audience gave Kingdom an A or a B. That's one of the lowest grades for an Apes movie in the millennium down there with Burton's which got a B-. Rotten Tomatoes' audience score has eased to 79%.
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Overall weekend stands at $93.8M, which is 27% ahead of last weekend, but 7% off from the same frame in May a year ago when the second weekend of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 delivered $62M.
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VARIETY SEZ:

The series' second movie, 2014's "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," holds the opening-weekend record with $72 million; followed by "War for the Planet of the Apes" with its $56.2 million opening; and then "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" with a $54.8 million opening.
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(Click image for full chart)

Worldwide Updates:







Weekend Box Office Archive (Updated 2023-05-07) and Appendix



 
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Loud Wrong

Loud Wrong

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Feb 24, 2020
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Hard not to see Challengers and Fall Guy as bombs. Unless they make a ton of money in streaming.
 
Saucycarpdog

Saucycarpdog

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Oct 25, 2017
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I did not see KFP4 out grossing KFP3. I thought the franchise was gonna lose some steam over the years.
 
HeartlessNobody2134

HeartlessNobody2134

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May 10, 2018
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Thought it might not make it but looks like Godzilla X Kong is only $10 million away from surpassing Skull Island as the highest grossing film in the Monsterverse.
 
Messofanego

Messofanego

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Oct 25, 2017
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Challengers had a $55 million budget?! Got to be salaries, or at least just Zendaya's. Cause it doesn't show on screen, even with the CGI balls. It's one of the best films of the year. Hope it's profitable.
 
RolandGunner

RolandGunner

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Oct 30, 2017
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Messofanego said:
Challengers had a $55 million budget?! Got to be salaries, or at least just Zendaya's. Cause it doesn't show on screen, even with the CGI balls. It's one of the best films of the year. Hope it's profitable.
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People have to accept that Apple and Amazon care more about streaming numbers than box office. Challengers taking even a $20M loss in the theaters is nothing for a $2 trillion dollar company.
 
Pai Pai Master

Pai Pai Master

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Oct 25, 2017
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Isn't Challengers backed up by Amazon
the theater run probably wasn't for financials they can take the hit. it was for awards season & clout (and maybe Zendaya demanded it)
 
KillstealWolf

KillstealWolf

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Saucycarpdog said:
I did not see KFP4 out grossing KFP3. I thought the franchise was gonna lose some steam over the years.
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Sorta like how Migration legged out due to zero competition. Kung Fu Panda 4 is also enjoying zero competition as well for March and April. It's only just getting its' first competitors now with IF and Garfield. It also greatly benefitted from Elio moving to 2025, as Elio was originally slated to come out March 1st (One week before KFP4)

Similarly makes me think Apes might still do ok legs wise as the only adult aiming film coming out over the next couple of weeks is Furiosa. Though we'd probably get a better call next week to see if that B score is going to hinder it much. I don't think Apes hits that 4 Quadrant market where a B would spell doom, and it has an opening that has matched Rise and War, but it being lower than every other Apes film is a little bit concerning.
 
Mekanos

Mekanos

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Oct 17, 2018
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Gonna try to see Apes today, I hope they make as many of these movies as possible.
 

Elry09

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Nov 11, 2017
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I hope Kingdom makes enough money that they don't bail on the next two, I really enjoyed it
 
KillstealWolf

KillstealWolf

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GifGafJef said:
I figured Fall Guy would do quite a bit better than it has so far..
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Brands are just bigger draws to the box office at the moment over actors it seems. I know The Fall Guy isn't a new brand, but I don't think many know of the TV show.

Does make me wonder how IF is going to fair next week. Feels like it's been one of the most advertised films of the quarter. It did actually open fairly well in France, and with the UK Previews happening today, most people that have seen it do sound pretty positive on it (Better than the trailers have been for the film at least.)

Like, estimates have IF pinged to do better than Garfield, and as much as I want that to happen, I'm also thinking "How?", considering how overexposed Garfields advertising has been as well, in addition to it being a much more recognisable character tied to the film. (That and the international openings for Garfield so far at least looking pretty good too.)
 
Kusagari

Kusagari

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Oct 25, 2017
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RolandGunner said:
People have to accept that Apple and Amazon care more about streaming numbers than box office. Challengers taking even a $20M loss in the theaters is nothing for a $2 trillion dollar company.
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Challengers also has product placement up the ass, which I'm sure helps the movie. Not sure what people really want expected from it. Outside of Zendaya, there's nothing marketable about the movie and that's before people actually see it because it's not a "mainstream" movie at all.
 
Darknight

Darknight

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Oct 25, 2017
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I would have hoped that The Fall Guy would have a solid second week from good word of mouth but it doesn't look to be the case. It's a solid movie that deserves better.
 
KillstealWolf

KillstealWolf

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Oct 27, 2017
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Kandinsky said:
Is that good for Apes?, the movie's ending was great so I hope they keep making these.
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It matches what Rise and War opened to, and the budget it roughly around what War was.

The concern is if the lower word of mouth from General Audiences this film has compared to the past Ape films is going to have effect on long legs, but we won't find out about that until next week at the earliest.
 
Tom Nook Says...

Tom Nook Says...

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Jan 15, 2019
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Messofanego said:
Challengers had a $55 million budget?! Got to be salaries, or at least just Zendaya's. Cause it doesn't show on screen, even with the CGI balls. It's one of the best films of the year. Hope it's profitable.
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I knew someone on a show that involved some CGI archery, and a vfx member told him "ya know, every time you fire an arrow it costs them $1,500." CGI adds up quick.
 
OP
OP
Gentlemen

Gentlemen

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Oct 25, 2017
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If Apes holds well next weekend's title will be "Oh my God, I was wrong! It's a hit, all along! Yes they finally made a monkey out of me!"
 
Zimmiwood

Zimmiwood

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Oct 25, 2017
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Kusagari said:
Challengers also has product placement up the ass, which I'm sure helps the movie. Not sure what people really want expected from it. Outside of Zendaya, there's nothing marketable about the movie and that's before people actually see it because it's not a "mainstream" movie at all.
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Exactly. This is an R rated homoerotic tennis film directed by Luca Guadagnino, it was never set out to be a mainstream film much less a blockbuster. This closing at anything close to 100m is amazing for what the film is.

Luiz kinda went over how by all accounts the expenses has largely already been covered. It reads like they were very smart about how to recoup costs, and this is without factoring in that Amazon largely doesn't care for the BO runs.
 
KillstealWolf

KillstealWolf

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Oct 27, 2017
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This might be the case where Apes outdoes what the cinemascore is implying, but it could also be a Mothers' Day bump, it really is going to be interesting to see where the legs go here, it helps that it's only competition in adult aiming films will be Furiosa, after that its Bad Boys, but that's like 4 weeks away at this point. It's mostly the battle of Younger Family Films over the upcoming weeks, and then that really quiet last week of May where we haven't really got anything.

IF's going to be the big film coming out this week. And from what I'm gathering from the UK Previews that happened over the weekend. Paramount did this one dirty in it's marketing. Sounds like whilst it's story beats are a bit predictable. The execution of said story is on point. We get reviews on Wednesday, and it could be they are higher than what people were expecting it to be.
 
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thediamondage

thediamondage

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Oct 25, 2017
11,627
apes strong together

always wild nowadays to see how many movies in theaters are already out on VOD, I just saw in the past 10 days Frozen Empire and Monkey Man and I know Abigail and Ministry Warfare are on VOD already too.
 
Starphanluke

Starphanluke

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Nov 15, 2017
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Very interested to see the legs on Apes. So far, the B Cinemascore doesn't seem to be playing out as expected (yes, that does usually show in the OW multiplier). This makes me wonder if Apes is now squarely out of the "big Sci-Fi blockbuster" part of the audience mindshare, and into the "high-budget prestige movie" part. Which has a slightly different grading curve for CS, and a B isn't as bad as it seems.
 
KillstealWolf

KillstealWolf

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Oct 27, 2017
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IF Reviews starting to trickle out now. Fairly Mixed response, some like it, some really don't like it, fairly wide variance than what you'd normally expect to see from reviews at present.

I keep seeing a $40m opening weekend prediction for this film... I'm still not sure if that's happening to be honest. Gonna be interesting to see where the audience falls on this one.
 
Timu

Timu

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Oct 25, 2017
15,823
KillstealWolf said:
IF Reviews starting to trickle out now. Fairly Mixed response, some like it, some really don't like it, fairly wide variance than what you'd normally expect to see from reviews at present.

I keep seeing a $40m opening weekend prediction for this film... I'm still not sure if that's happening to be honest. Gonna be interesting to see where the audience falls on this one.
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It's doing worse than I thought! Didn't expect to see it get rotten so early.
 
Johnzyboi

Johnzyboi

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Nov 10, 2018
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If only has a week before Garfield comes out and eats its lasagna. That's gonna hurt it more than reviews.
 
CrichtonKicks

CrichtonKicks

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Oct 25, 2017
11,340
KillstealWolf said:
IF Reviews starting to trickle out now. Fairly Mixed response, some like it, some really don't like it, fairly wide variance than what you'd normally expect to see from reviews at present.

I keep seeing a $40m opening weekend prediction for this film... I'm still not sure if that's happening to be honest. Gonna be interesting to see where the audience falls on this one.
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It's kid focused so I'm not sure that reviews will have much of an impact here.
 
SolidSnakex

SolidSnakex

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Oct 25, 2017
23,740
The Strangers: Chapter 1 only cost 8.5m to make. That's slightly cheaper than the original (9m). It should easily make bank.
 
Saucycarpdog

Saucycarpdog

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Oct 25, 2017
16,683
Didn't they film all 3 Strangers movies back to back in the span of 2 months? Probably helps bring down the costs.

Tacking has it opening at 7m-9m so it's gonna make it's money back.
 
KillstealWolf

KillstealWolf

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IF's just about creeped back into the Fresh Territory, so I imagine it's going to ping-pong it's way in and out of that boundary as more reviews come in, just going to have to wait to see how the General Audience responds to it now.

In more positive news, Furiosa reviews are absolutely glowing. That should make for a good watch next weekend.
 
Timu

Timu

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Oct 25, 2017
15,823
KillstealWolf said:
IF's just about creeped back into the Fresh Territory, so I imagine it's going to ping-pong it's way in and out of that boundary as more reviews come in, just going to have to wait to see how the General Audience responds to it now.

In more positive news, Furiosa reviews are absolutely glowing. That should make for a good watch next weekend.
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That's fine for IF but let's hope the average rating doesn't drop much further or else it'll end up rotten again.

Furiosa's reviews came earlier than expected but it was glowing since the social media embargo lifted last week and now that translate to the critic reviews with an insane average rating on 8.50 which is almost the same as Fury Road's 8.60 average rating. Will be interested what will happen next week but we all know it's certified fresh at this point.
 
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