Weekend tracking for GxK was upped to $66M-$74M with a lot more walk-up business than expected.

Upped to $75M-80M.

Kong vs. Godzilla 2 made $37 million between the Thursday previews and Friday crowds, surpassing Dune 2 by $5 million for the top opening night of 2024.

By my logic, that means K v G is now in the driver's seat for Best Picture.

Early weekend chart is out:

Kong/Godzilla 2: $80 million
Ghostbusters: $15.7 million
Dune 2: $13 million
Kung Fu Panda: $10.2 million

Have to wait for the final official #s, but Kong/Zilla is $2.5 million behind Dune for largest opening weekend of 2024, and would be the 10th largest March opening weekend ever.

The 2014 Godzilla reboot made $93 million its opening weekend that May. Skull Island made $61 million, and the first Kong V. Godzilla made $37 million in 2021 (thanks, COVID)

Kung Fu Panda has reached $151.6 million, surpassing its 2016 predecessor and is only $14 million behind the second entry.

Dune 2 is up to $254.3 million domestic, good for 142nd all-time.

Seems like the year has started off good how is the YTD box office total right now compared to 2023?

I'm seeing 11M for Dune. Which is still slightly above Oppenheimer's 10.7 fifth weekend.

What sources are you using for the estimates?

Deadline

https://deadline.com/2024/03/box-office-godzilla-x-kong-the-new-empire-1235871440/

This is actually pretty impressive. I wonder how many times this has happened.

As written! #DunePartTwo is the 2nd film led by #TimothéeChalamet to hit 600M mark at Global #BoxOffice in 2 months, after #Zendaya & Friends scored another 18.4M 5th weekend overseas (vs #TheBatman’s 13.4M, #Oppenheimer’s 32.6M), just -42.3% drop from last weekend, for a 373.7M… pic.twitter.com/Gkg56HW44B

— Luiz Fernando (@Luiz_Fernando_J) March 31, 2024

jokershady said:

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Seems like the year has started off good how is the YTD box office total right now compared to 2023?

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2024 is definitely beating expectations so far, but it's still down compared to 2023, and will almost assuredly remain so by the end of the year. Which was expected, seeing as the strikes, unfortunately, were always going to handicap this year. Still, as of this weekend, 2024 is down only 6.4% compared to this time last year, while some estimates at the beginning of the year projected it to be down 10% or more. That said, early April of last year is when The Super Mario Bros. Movie hit, and went on to make a billion+. There's nothing that will come remotely close to that next month, so I expect that 6.4% to start inching closer to 10% over the next month and into the summer.

And there's nothing in the summer than can possibly match Barbenheimer.

If all three somehow catch fire, the July trifecta of Despicable Me 4 (July 3) + Twisters (July 19) + Deadpool & Wolverine (July 26) could MAYBE come close. Minions: The Rise of Gru did $940M worldwide in 2022, which is right around Oppenheimer's total. And if both are great, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that Twisters + Deadpool & Wolverine could then do over/around $1.44B combined, which was Barbie's worldwide total. Yes, the chances are slim, but considering this August has a very real shot at being bigger than last August, the summer numbers at least have the potential to be closer than I thought.

In fact, honestly, with The Garfield Movie, If, and Inside Out 2 also having a ton of potential among kids/families, if Alien: Romulus, Furiosa, A Quiet Place: Day One, etc can catch on as well, I'm getting more and more confident in putting, say, these 20 summer 2024 movies up against summer 2023's top 20...

- Alien: Romulus
- Bad Boys: Ride or Die
- The Crow
- The Bikeriders
- Deadpool & Wolverine
- Despicable Me 4
- The Garfield Movie
- The Fall Guy
- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
- Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
- Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2
- If
- Inside Out 2
- Kingdom of the Planet of Apes
- Kraven the Hunter
- Longlegs
- A Quiet Place: Day One
- The Strangers: Chapter 1
- Twisters
- Young Woman and the Sea

Thanks to stronger than expected performances from #DunePartTwo, #GodzillaXKong, #KungFuPanda4 & last minute additions of family plays such as #Moana2 to 2024 schedule, industry is moving 2024 Global #BoxOffice forecast up, from 31.5B to 32.3B as per #GowerStreetAnalytics, with… pic.twitter.com/SXOXjSTfoP

— Luiz Fernando (@Luiz_Fernando_J) April 7, 2024

Beat the tracking, which was $22M...

‘CIVIL WAR’ opens with $27.5M domestically, making it:

• A24’s first ever film to be #1 at the domestic box office

• A24’s highest grossing opening weekend ever pic.twitter.com/0CGCFvItIQ

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) April 14, 2024

Warner Bros Tops $1B At International Box Office In Own Record Time; First Studio To Milestone In 2024 https://t.co/qTx6dnz7yo

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) April 14, 2024

Dune 2 within a few million of cresting $700 million worldwide.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt15239678/

Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare opened a shade under $9 million domestically against a budget of $60 million, which doesn't bode well. I generally root for Ritchie movies to do well since I suspect I fall into his target audience.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt5177120/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_of_Ungentlemanly_Warfare

The Fall Guy exploded to a $28.5 million opening this weekend. Technically it's a previous IP, but not exactly one with millions of fans hanging around considering the TV show ended in 1986 and Lee Majors is way more known as the $6 million man.

The re-release of the Phantom Menace put it second at $8 million, allowing the film to surge past Frozen 2 into 22nd place at the all-time box office at $482 million.

Godzilla x Kong is now at $188 million, about $280,000 behind Kung Fu Panda 4 for second place in the box office this year.

Dune 2, which reduced to 702 theaters over the weekend, is up to $281 million, good for #120 all-time domestic It only needs to make another $400,000 to pass The Matrix Reloaded and Mocking Jay Part 2 and will settle into #118 all-time when it's all said and done.

The fact we still have a re-release on its 2nd FRI in the daily Top10 a week after a SUMMER kickoff, despite it having an -82% drop, tells us a lot about the current landscape at US #BoxOffice, as #StarWars Episode I: #ThePhantomMenace reissue added 438k on 2nd FRI over 2.700… pic.twitter.com/9Zjhc3k7Yr

— Luiz Fernando (@Luiz_Fernando_J) May 11, 2024

$55M+

#KingdomOfThePlanetOfTheApes poised for a strong debut at US #BoxOffice, after scoring a 22.2M FRI Opening Day including previews (vs 2001 #PlanetOfTheApes’s 24.6M, #RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes’ 19.5M, #DawnOfThePlanetOfTheApes’ 27.6M, #WarForThePlanetOfTheApes’ 22.1M
Eyeing a… pic.twitter.com/vlq26bTa6n

— Luiz Fernando (@Luiz_Fernando_J) May 11, 2024

Phantom Menace pulls another $1.5 million on the weekend to slip past Finding Dory back into 21st place on the all-time domestic box office list. The franchise now has 5 of the top 21 and 6 of the top 24 domestic money-makers of all-time

The real fun of @deadpoolmovie & Wolverine opening weekend is if @Twistersmovie is a full on breakout the week before. If that happens, then you are looking at a total box office approaching $275m+ being possible. pic.twitter.com/UQSf2GUSzP

— EmpireCity Box Office (@EmpireCityBO) May 20, 2024

Apparently a terrible holiday weekend at the box office.

Both Furiosa and Garfield disappointing with $31M weekends.

I've been wanting to go to the movies lately but every time I look for tickets I don't see anything that sounds good.

Twisters is the only thing on my radar I'm psyched for.

There's nothing out that I want to see with the kids. We reluctantly are going to see Garfield. Pray for us.

Woof...

That’s how rough things are:

Even after 3-day weekend updated numbers, this weekend’s TOP10 films **COMBINED** grossed 97.7M from FRI to SUN at US #BoxOffice.#TheLittleMermaid ALONE grossed 95.6M on this very weekend in 2023.

That’s not all: #Furiosa & #Garfield, for their… pic.twitter.com/PoiSttTKvA

— Luiz Fernando (@Luiz_Fernando_J) May 27, 2024

Furiosa never should have been a Memorial Day weekend release, but that's just the way things shook out in the wake of the strikes and all the shifting release dates they caused. May has been a bloodbath as a result, but June should be better, and then July will likely do insane numbers once again. After that, August should be even be better than last August, hopefully coming close to balancing out the overall summer numbers as a result.

If Inside Out 2 is just as good if not better than the first then that'll change everything….

Yeah, Inside Out 2 is tracking extremely well and should do gangbusters. Bad Boys for Life and A Quiet Place: Day One are also tracking well, and then if Horizon or any one of the sh*t ton of horror movies or indies that are releasing break out, if only marginally, it'll be a damn good month overall.

The substantial lag time from Inside Out 1 to Inside Out 2 is probably going to see it making a similar jump like Nemo to Dory or Incredibles 1 to Incredibles 2. Not as much money as either of those 2, but I bet a lot more than the first.

My girls saw Inside Out when they were 3 and it was the first movie we ever took them to. Going to see the second one at age 12 when they are almost the same age as Riley is like slam dunk easy money, and I bet there's a legion of kids out there that feel likewise.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Apparently a terrible holiday weekend at the box office.

Both Furiosa and Garfield disappointing with $31M weekends.

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On big holiday weekends, I assume most people are at the river/lake/beach, BBQing or partying, not going to the movies.

It was still a terrible weekend compared to all other Memorial Day weekends.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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It was still a terrible weekend compared to all other Memorial Day weekends.

---

To Brian's point, here are the tops for the last several years; 2020 obviously not included. And take into account that in May 2021, most stuff was still nowhere near back to normal.

2024: Furiosa $32m (37th); Garfield $31.1m (38th)
2023: The Little Mermaid $118.8 m (#5 all time)
2022: Maverick: $160m (#1)
2021: A Quiet Place Part II: You'll Have to Speak Up, $57m (#23); Cruella $26.5m (41st)
2019: Aladdin $116m (#7)
2018: Solo $103m (#10)
2017: POTC #5 $78.4m (#15)
2016: XMen Apocalypse: $79.8m (#14), Alice Thru the Looking Glass: $33.5m (#35)

You have to go back to 2015 when Tomorrowland opened to $42 million to have a year where there wasn't a $50 million earner on Memorial Dy weekend.

Well, the idea of Will Smith as a former box star is looking pretty dumb right now.

Bad Boys 4 came out last night and made $5.875 million on Thursday night about 68% higher than Furiosa's $3.5 million two weeks ago.

Bad Boys is the rare franchise where each movies has made more than the previous one, and the third one probably would have done even better except it came out 2 months before COVID hit

A look back:

Bad Boys, April 1995: Domestic $65 m, Worldwide: $141m

Bad Boys II: July, 2003: Domestic: $138m; Worldwide: $273m

Bad Boys for Life: January, 2020: Domestic $204m, Worldwide: $424m

I never thought to look at this before, but super fascinating glance at its box office as COVID ramped up in March 2020 : https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Bad-Boys-For-Life-(Bad-Boys-3)-(2020)#tab=box-office
On Monday, March 9 it made $297,497.On March 16, in the same # of theaters, it made $85,462, on the 17th it made $25,606, and on the 18th, it made $6,487 - $4 per theater. On the 19th, the theaters shut down.

It had made $7m, $5m, and $4m the previous three weeks, so easily lost $10m+ at the end of its run to COVID.

Bad Boys for Life made $6.36m on opening night in January 2020, so Bad Boys 4, is just $500,00 below that. This is his first big domestic release since he asked Chris Rock what the 5 fingers said to the face.

Here's a comparison chart. (Ride or Die not updated yet.)

https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons-extended/Bad-Boys-For-Life-(Bad-Boys-3)-(2020)/Bad-Boys-Ride-or-Die-(2024)/Bad-Boys-II#tab=day_by_day_comparison

Honestly I did not realize For Life did so well right before the pandemic.