“Barbenheimer” continues to rule the late summer box office as Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” earns its fourth No. 1 weekend with $33.7 million grossed, bringing its excellent domestic total to $526.3 million.
With another $48 million, “Barbie” will pass the domestic total of Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and become the highest grossing film of 2023 in North America.
Globally, “Barbie” has now reached $1.18 billion and passed the $1.12 billion global total of “Captain Marvel,” giving Greta Gerwig the record for the highest grossing film directed by a woman.
On the flip side, Universal’s period horror film “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” is sinking fast at the box office, opening to just $6.5 million from 2,715 locations.
Any legs for this $45 million film are unlikely, as “Demeter” has earned a middling B- on CinemaScore and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 49% critics and 74% audience. This will be the second vampire flop for Universal this year after the more comedic “Renfield” opened to just $8 million this past spring and grossed only $26.3 million worldwide.
Of course, Universal still has plenty to smile about with the continued success of “Oppenheimer,” which now joins the Freddie Mercury film “Bohemian Rhapsody” as only the second biopic to gross over $600 million worldwide (third if you count “The Passion of the Christ” as a biopic).
With $18 million grossed in its fourth weekend, “Oppenheimer” now has totals of $264.2 million domestic and $649 million worldwide. $134.4 million of that global total has come from IMAX screenings, making it the sixth highest of all time in the premium format. That is remarkable considering that “Oppenheimer” is not screening on IMAX in several key Asian markets, including China, Korea, Japan and Russia.
In the No. 3 spot is Paramount’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” which is holding well with $15.7 million in its second weekend. With $72.7 million domestic after 12 days in theaters, “Mutant Mayhem” is keeping pace with Disney/Pixar’s “Elemental,” which would give it a solid domestic total of around $150 million against a reported $70 million budget.
Less impressive is Warner Bros.’ “Meg 2: The Trench,” which fell 60% from its opening weekend to $12.3 million. The film has a two-weekend total of around $53 million, well behind the $83 million grossed by the first “Meg” to this point.
Next weekend, Warner Bros. will release the DC film “Blue Beetle,” which is facing very low opening weekend projections of around $30 million after “The Flash” became one of the biggest tentpole bombs in recent box office history. The SAG-AFTRA strike is also damaging the film’s marketing campaign as its primarily Latino cast, led by Xolo Maridueña and George Lopez, cannot promote the film per the actors guild’s strike rules.
