AP – The Spider-Man spinoff Kraven the Hunter got off to a disastrous start in North American theatres last weekend.
The movie starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson earned only USD11 million, according to studio estimates on Sunday, making it one of the worst openings for a Marvel-adjacent property.
Its box office take was even less than the film Madame Web.
The weekend’s other major studio release was Warner Bros’ animated The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which made USD4.6 million. Made for about USD30 million, the movie is set 183 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings films and was fast-tracked to ensure New Line did not lose the rights to Tolkien’s novels.
Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens have been working on future live-action films for the franchise.
Meanwhile, the top of the charts again belonged to Moana 2 and Wicked.
Moana added USD26.6 million to its domestic total in its third weekend and USD57.2 million internationally, bringing its global tally to USD717 million.
It’s now the fourth highest grossing film of the year, surpassing Dune: Part Two.
Wicked, which is in its fourth weekend, brought in another USD22.5 million to take second place.
The Universal musical has made over USD359 million domestically and over USD500 million worldwide.
Gladiator II also made USD7.8 million, bringing its domestic total to USD145.9 million in four weeks.
Kraven the Hunter is the latest misfire from Sony in its attempt to mine the Spider-Man universe for spin-off franchises without the lucrative web slinger himself.
Kraven joins Madame Web and Morbius in franchise additions that fell flat with both audiences and critics.
The one exception on this rollercoaster journey has been the Venom trilogy, which has made over USD1.8 billion worldwide.
The R-rated Kraven the Hunter was directed by JC Chandor and faced a number of delays, partly due to the Hollywood strikes.
It was shot nearly three years ago and originally slated to hit theatres in January 2023.
The film cost a reported USD110 million to produce and was co-financed by TSG.
Internationally, it made USD15 million, but its potential for longevity appears limited: It currently carries a 15 per cent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes and got a C grade on CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences.
“It’s not always a guarantee that you’ll be able to connect with audiences when you have a spinoff character,” said senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian for Comscore. “General audiences seem to want to know exactly what they’re getting.”
Several awards contenders opened in limited release over the weekend, including Paramount’s September 5 about ABC’s coverage of the Munich Olympics hostage crisis.
Amazon MGM and Orion’s Nickel Boys, based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winner about an abusive reform school in Florida, opened in two theatres in New York.
It averaged USD30,422 per screen and will be expanding to Los Angeles before going nationwide in the coming weeks.
Some big hitters are on the way in the home stretch of the 2024 box office. Mufasa and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will hit in the coming weeks along with a bevy of arthouse and adult releases like Babygirl, Nosferatu and A Complete Unknown.
The box office has seen a dramatic recovery since June, when it was down nearly 28 per cent from the previous year. The deficit now stands at 4.8 per cent. – Lindsey Bahr
