"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" Returns to #1 Spot

[JamesG]

Box Office: Spider-Verse Returns to No. 1 as The Flash Collapses by 73% and Jennifer Lawrence’s No Hard Feelings Opens to $15 Million
by Rebecca Rubin
June 25, 2023


Somewhere across the multiverse, The Flash once touted by its own studio as “one of the greatest superhero movies of all time,” should be towering over the box office with ease in its second weekend of release.

But in this universe, audiences are flat-out rejecting the Warner Bros. movie, starring Ezra Miller as the eponymous, timeline-spanning speedster.



Rather than taking a victory lap, the DC comic book adventure is cratering in third place behind holdovers Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Pixar’s Elemental and ever-so-slightly ahead of Jennifer Lawrence’s new R-rated comedy No Hard Feelings.

Over the weekend, The Flash suffered a brutal 73% decline in its second weekend with $15.3 million from 4,265 North American theaters. That’s a far bigger drop than recent DC adaptations like Black Adam (59%) and Shazam! Fury of the Gods (69%), which ended up as notable money losers for the studio.



In the case of The Flash, it’s a catastrophic result for the $200 million-budgeted tentpole because it signals that ticket sales won’t rebound in its theatrical run.

So far, the film has generated a lousy $87 million at the domestic box office and $123.3 million internationally, bringing the worldwide total to $210.9 million.







Overall, it’s a chaotic weekend at the box office as Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse returned to the No. 1 spot (in its fourth weekend of release, no less) with a mighty $19.3 million.

It’s rare that a film returns to the top of charts this far into its theatrical run, especially in the heat of summer movie season. So far, Across the Spider-Verse has generated $316 million in North America and $560 million globally.



The Spider-Verse sequel narrowly beat out Disney and Pixar’s animated Elemental, which remained in second place with $18.5 million. That brings its domestic tally to $65 million and global total to $121 million.

Ticket sales in its sophomore outing were stronger than anticipated, dropping only 37% from the prior weekend. Unfortunately for Elemental, it landed (by far) the worst start in modern history for Pixar. So it’ll need to remain the de facto choice for family audiences to justify its $200 million price tag and restore a little confidence in the Pixar brand.







Lawrence’s raunchy comedy No Hard Feelings opened in fourth place with $15 million from 3,208 venues. It’s not a bad result for a contemporary theatrical comedy, but analysts were expecting more from the $45 million-budgeted Sony movie that stars one of the biggest names in Hollywood.

Directed by Gene Stupnitsky, No Hard Feelings pulled in $9.5 million from 48 markets at the international box office. That’s a promising turnout because broad comedies tend to have limited overseas appeal.







Rounding out the top five, Paramount’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts added $11.6 million from 3,523 theaters, a 44% decline in its third weekend.

To date, the seventh Transformers installment has earned $122.9 million at the domestic box office and $218 million internationally. It cost $200 million to produce.







Elsewhere at the domestic box office, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City scored $9 million as it expanded to 1,675 theaters over the weekend. That’s a career-high for Anderson, the filmmaker of arthouse favorites like The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

By comparison, his latest feature, 2021’s The French Dispatch, brought in $2.5 million when it broadened its footprint to a similar number of theaters.

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/j...es-1235653983/







June 23-25, 2023: Weekend Studio Estimates

1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse $19,300,000 / $317,050,646
2. Elemental $18,463,000 / $65,514,915
3. The Flash $15,265,000 / $87,644,000
4. No Hard Feelings $15,100,000
5. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts $11,600,000 / $122,947,711
6. Asteroid City $9,000,000 / $10,214,714
7. The Little Mermaid $8,674,000 / $270,241,764
8. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 $3,518,000 / $351,122,883
9. The Blackening $3,025,000 / $12,266,705
10. The Boogeyman $2,541,000 / $37,710,059