Clayface. (Photo credit: DC Studios)
Last week on the Box Office Report, we wrote about the tale of two releases. Street Fighter had the #1 opening, but You Can See Everything had a significantly higher theatre-average. Compared to Mortal Kombat II, we expected a slightly higher drop than a 65%, which would have been disastrous relative to the opening weekend of Street Fighter, and the numbers are in: an estimated 72% drop.
Through its second weekend Street Fighter has made less than its production budget, and on a $200M+ breakeven point, the film already being down to less than $10M in a weekend and doing far worse internationally than domestic, which was anticipated to be the opposite, it’s time to begin eulogizing this film. We explored it more last week in detail why this underperforms: it doesn’t have any real star (sorry, pro wrestling fans. Roman Reigns is not known outside of wrestling circles, no matter how much needle-mover proganda WWE shoves down the throats of their audience), the franchise popularity doesn’t and probably won’t ever match that of the Mortal Kombat IP, and its word-of-mouth isn’t strong. Having seen the film, however, with the exception of Cody Rhodes, there’s no charm. Roman Reigns, thankfully only in around five minutes of this film, gets more performance variety out of his veneers than anything he actually has the ability to do, though anybody who’s watched the last ten years of WWE television should know by now he’s absolutely terrible at anything that isn’t aura farming, David Dastmalchian (who we love at the Box Office Report! You should watch Late Night with the Devil, and also check out an interview our team recently did with him) comes across as if he’s in an entirely different movie, the script isn’t funny, the visual effects amateur at best, and for a film about a fighting tournament, they decided to show you everything but the fighting tournament, including Eric Andre telling you about the tournament you bought a ticket to see. It’s just…not a good time at the movies, and if this is an indication of David Ellison’s grand vision, then the company that’s already in $90B in debt with over $15M in interest accumulating per day, and their operating costs skyrocketing thanks to a junk grade stock that’s worth half the value that Warner and PSKY were separately a month ago deserves to lose even more money.
While Street Fighter dropped from first to fourth with an embarrassingly large drop, You Can See Everything successfully defended its second place crown with a 29% increase. While a number this high is certainly rare and should be celebrated, it’s worth noting that most platform releases do see an increase in box office, and this isn’t exactly on par with any of the tentpole films that open huge because it was never in its peak theatre count. For reference, last week the Nathan Fielder/Lance Oppenheim three-hour experimental documentary on Elizabeth Holmes made $18K per theatre it was in, and this weekened it made ~$7K per theatre. That’s still a huge number, and a documentary making this much money in the United States is a massive deal, but it also highlights how much of the hype was centered around the major markets such as Manhattan, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Orlando, and generally the places they had already opened. The 29% increase represents strong word-of-mouth from those markets, proving that the marketing technique in this instance absolutely worked, but the context on the increase matters. Take the Box Office Report from Memorial Day, that was the weekend that Obsession saw a similar jump in box office. But that increase came following a robust wide release of over 2,600 theatres, the number that YCSE didn’t reach until this weekend.
All of that said, though, this documentary passing $30M domestic is easily the biggest box office performance since the Obsession and Backrooms performances of the summer. For a three-hour documentary to force its way into a release this wide, and into the Oscar conversation beyond Best Documentary Feature (I’ll have an updated acting predictions posted for October between now and the next DSR BOR, and redacted is one of the most fascinating people to gauge) is one hell of an accomplishment.
Then there’s the number one film, and congratulations are in order for James Gunn, who only months after the turbulence of Supergirl has landed the plane with an exceptionally well received Lanterns series and what’s looking like it’ll be a commercially successful Clayface. The DC picture has already surpassed its production budget, and the strong WOM (A- CinemaScore, 3.8 Letterboxd average, and a 94% on the popcorn meter) shows terrific audience satisfaction. Don’t let the bad faith actors, and we all know who they are, spread their weird agenda with ‘no MCU film would ever open this low.’ The highest-grossing body horror film of all-time is The Substance, which made $82M, and this is about a C-tier villain the average person has never heard of, with no superhero in it. This would be the equivalent of Marvel making a Rhino movie. This film has been well received and will make money, and that’s all you can ask for, especially on a major swing such as Clayface. It may not be gigantic box office, but to be able to create auteur visions on side characters and allow different types of movies to co-exist in the same universe is a massive deal that’ll allow DC to expand its fotprint beyond standard superhero fare, and carve their own identity in an oversaturated superhero market. These are the films you need to win, even if the risk is far lower on them.
An unfortunate box office story is Wildwood, which represents the second bomb of Travis Knight’s year, and yet another addition to a long list of LAIKA bombs. Fortunately, Knight and LAIKA have Nike money, because it’s perhaps the greatest animated achievement of the decade. In my out-of-theatre response, I wrote that “without saying much there’s clearly a lot inspiration from Narnia, and there’s a lot Miyazaki-isms, but it’s also probably the darkest animated Hollywood film I’ve seen since Hunchback? Take its thematic darkness and juxtapose it with such imaginative and fresh animation style that makes it one of the most beautiful films to look at and you have Wildwood. I was expecting far more thematically on the primitive nature of aging, and I’m very glad they focused far more on the mature themes in this film. The grief, the finite reality of time, the loss innocence as one ages, and how all of that can work with and against each other.” At its core, it’s an emotionally complex, very personal and human look at sisterhood, parenthood, and the desperation of creating and protecting a family. Its at its best, it’s the most spectacular film of the year to look at. It only made $11M this weekend on a $100M budget after licensing the book fifteen years ago. This won’t make money, but it’s also one of those pieces of art in where the existence simply justifies itself, and Phil Knight allowing his son the breathing room to make high art is the closest thing we have to the Medici’s commmissioning art in Florence for the greater good during the Italian Renaissance.
In fifth, Wicker had a pretty solid opening for Black Bear, which if you’ve read the BOR this year, has really struggled in their first year as a distributor. The film opened to around $5M in the U.S., but the Olivia Colman comedy had been purchased for only $2.5M by the distributor, meaning they’re already in the green on this release. For a very small theatrical player, these are the kinds of wins that keep the lights on. The film itself is rather delightful, with a fun villain performance from Elizabeth Debicki, a great lead character actor performance from Colman, and great practical effects to bring the man made of Wicker to life. Solid counterprogramming to Clayface.
On the opposite end of the low-budget spectrum, Sony’s $20M production investment on a new Taikka Waititi film starring Amy Adams and Jenna Ortega, three people who desperately need a theatrical hit on their record again, made less than $1M and opened outside of the top ten. If you want to see this movie, you’re probably the only one, but prioritize it this week because it won’t be getting a second one at a majority of theatres.
Rounding out the top ten this week: Other Mommy, Sense and Sensibility, Whalefall, Verity, and Resident Evil, all of which we’ve covered in previous Box Office Reports.
Looking ahead, there aren’t many big releases. We’ll have The Mosquito Bowl, which feels like a peculiar choice for Netflix to go theatrical with, but it’ll like be our biggest story of the week because Netflix will be reported the box office numbers, and allowing third-party verification companies a look at their books. There’s also awards plays such as Fjord and The Last Living Pickpocket in New York. But with Halloween falling on a Saturday, studios aren’t releasing much of anything as families being out all night would, theoretically, led to a muted box office.
Jameus Mooney is an entertainment writer for Comicbook Clique, having covered the entertainment industry for years. You can follow him on Twitter here, and Letterboxd here. Mooney has a new podcast for CBC/DSR called Every Film Everywhere alongside DSR founder Jon Escudero. You can also listen to his horror podcast, The 2:17 Horror Podcast, at the DeathArts XIII YouTube channel.