"Novocaine" Leads Slow St. Patrick's Day Weekend at $8.7M

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Jack Quaid’s Novocaine Leads Painfully Slow Weekend with $8.7 Million Debut
by Rebecca Rubin
March 16, 2025


Jack Quaid’s action-comedy Novocaine topped a painfully slow weekend at the box office with $8.7 million. For theater owners, however, there’s not too much to celebrate: It’s one of the worst debuts to still capture the No. 1 spot (at least since the pandemic ground moviegoing to a halt).

Despite five new nationwide releases, this weekend was among the year’s lowest grossing to date with $52 million across all films, according to Comscore.





Novocaine opened slightly behind projections of $10 million from 3,365 North American theaters. The film also stalled internationally with $1.8 million from 19 markets, though that represents just 25% of its overseas footprint.

There’s good news as Novocaine didn’t cost all that much and audiences mostly liked it. Paramount spent a modest $18 million before marketing, so there’s not too high a threshold for profitability.

Novocaine earned a “B” grade on CinemaScore and 81% average on Rotten Tomatoes.





Steven Soderbergh’s sleek thriller Black Bag, struggled to draw crowds despite rave reviews. The R-rated spy drama opened at No. 3 with $7.5 million from 2,705 cinemas.

It’s not a bad start since the film is aimed at older audiences, except that Focus Features shelled out $50 million on the production. Black Bag fizzled with $4.2 million from 37 overseas markets for a global tally of $11.7 million.





A24’s surrealist satire Opus cratered in 12th place with $1 million from 1,764 theaters, one of the worst starts ever for a wide release.

Critics and audiences panned the film, about a young writer (Ayo Edebiri) who travels to the remote compound of a legendary pop star (John Malkovich) who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago.

Opus was saddled with a “C+” on CinemaScore and 40% “rotten” average on Rotten Tomatoes. Luckily, the movie was relatively inexpensive, costing under $10 million to produce.





The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie debuted in fifth place with $3 million from 2,827 locations, while Biblical drama The Last Supper was close behind at No. 6 with $2.8 million from 1,575 theaters.

Both were backed by indie distributors.





Last weekend’s champion Mickey 17 slid to second place with $7.6 million from 3,807 venues, a tragic 60% decline from opening weekend.

So far, the dystopian sci-fi comedy from Bong Joon Ho and Robert Pattinson has generated $33.3 million domestically and roughly $90 million globally.





Disney's Captain America: Brave New World landed in fourth place with $5.2 million in its fifth weekend on the big screen.

The superhero adventure, starring Anthony Mackie, has earned $185 million domestically and $388.6 million worldwide, which is enough to rank as the biggest Hollywood release of the year but isn’t nearly enough to offset its massive $180 million price tag.

https://variety.com/2025/film/box-of...nd-1236338809/




March 14-16, 2025: Weekend Studio Estimates

1. Novocaine $8,700,000
2. Mickey 17 $7,510,000 / $33,287,032
3. Black Bag $7,500,000
4. Captain America: Brave New World $5,479,000 / $185,396,912
5. The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie $3,170,000
6. The Last Supper $2,825,000
7. Paddington in Peru $2,775,000 / $41,317,866
8. Dog Man $2,500,000 / $92,817,665
9. The Monkey $2,465,000 / $35,212,015
10. Last Breath $2,300,000 / $18,562,820