LOS ANGELES (AP) – Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham weren’t enough to save Expend4bles from a debut box office flop. The fourth installment suffered the action-packed franchise’s worst opening weekend while The Nun 2 took home the top spot for a third straight week, data firm Comscore reported recently.
The Lionsgate and Millennium’s film, also known as Expendables 4, pulled in a mediocre USD8.3 million for the big-budget project. It starred several popular names, including Stallone, Statham, Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson, Megan Fox and Dolph Lundgren. It’s been nearly a decade since the franchise released a film, which opened with USD15.8 million and eventually grossed USD214 million globally.
But times have certainly changed, as the film barely placed second behind The Nun 2, a horror movie that earned USD8.4 million in its first week. It’s been a solid start for that Warner Bros’ project – a spinoff from the lucrative Conjuring franchise. So far, the Michael Chaves-directed sequel has grossed more than USD69 million.
“It’s a star-studded franchise, but horror is a different situation,” said senior media analyst for Comscore Paul Dergarabedian. “It just seems no matter what if you’re scared in the movie theatre a couple times in an hour and a half or two, that’s worth the price of admission.”
In third, A Haunting in Venice earned USD6.3 million. Kenneth Branagh’s third Agatha Christie adaptation, following 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express and 2022’s Death on the Nile, has drawn in over USD25.3 million after two weeks.
The Equalizer 3, starring Denzel Washington, only dropped to fourth place with USD4.725 million. In four weeks, it has grossed USD81.1 million domestically.
Barbie, the biggest movie of 2023, is still carrying some momentum from the summer into the fall season. The Greta Gerwig box-office smash ranked in the top five, earning USD3.2 million this week and a domestic total of more than USD630 million after a 10-week period.
Sixth place went to My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, with USD3 million, while It Lives Inside opened its first week with USD2.6 million. The Sony film Dumb Money, a dramatisation of the GameStop stock frenzy, stayed put in the eighth position for a second week in a row with USD2.5 million.
Blue Beetle fell to ninth, with USD1.8 million, and Oppenheimer rounded out the top 10 with USD1.6 million. The Christopher Nolan film has garnered USD321 million domestically.
Last weekend grossed the lowest since December 9, 2022, Dergarabedian said. It was also the first time since the weekend of February 10, 2023 to not have a movie earn over USD10 million.
But Dergarabedian said a “spectacular October” could be on the way with the much-anticipated Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film, The Exorcist: Believer and Saw X.
“Things are going to change next week or the weeks after when Taylor Swift hits the multiplex,” he said. “This is the natural ebbs and flow of the box office. That means one thing: We’ll be back to normal.” – Jonathan Landrum Jr
