Disney/Marvel Studios’ “Captain America: Brave New World” is not finding a significant audience outside of stalwart fans, sinking 68% from its $88 million 3-day opening weekend for a $28.2 million second frame.
Combined with $35.3 million from overseas markets, Anthony Mackie’s first feature film with the red, white and blue shield has a two weekend total of $141.2 million domestic and $289.2 million worldwide, the domestic total approximately 15.5% behind the pace of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.”
If “Captain America: Brave New World” continues to drop at the same pace as “Quantumania,” which fell 60% in its third weekend, then it will fall short of $200 million domestic. The one hope that the film has is a bad sign for theaters: there is no major competition on the horizon.
On the third weekend of “Quantumania,” the MGM boxing film “Creed III” hit theaters with a $58.3 million opening, accelerating the Marvel film’s drop. With Oscar weekend coming up, “Captain America: Brave New World” will not have to deal with such competition, and the weekend after brings Warner Bros.’ “Mickey 17,” which is currently tracking for a $20 million opening weekend. Disney is hoping that will mitigate the drops and give “Captain America” more legs.
In second is Neon’s “The Monkey,” which has earned an opening weekend of $14.2 million from 3,200 theaters. That’s the second highest opening weekend ever for Neon behind only the $22.6 million launch of last summer’s “Longlegs,” which was also directed by filmmaker Osgood Perkins.
Like “Longlegs,” “The Monkey” didn’t win over everyone with its bloody kills and vicious humor, earning Rotten Tomatoes scores of 77% critics and 62% audience with a C+ on CinemaScore. But it is still another horror success for Neon, which acquired this $10 million production at last year’s Cannes Film Market.
Sony/StudioCanal’s “Paddington in Peru” is in third this weekend with a $6.5 million second weekend, bringing its domestic total to $25.2 million. That is on consistent with the unadjusted pace of “Paddington 2” in 2018. “Paddington in Peru” just beat out another family holdover, Universal/DreamWorks’ “Dog Man,” which earned $5.9 million in its fourth weekend to bring its domestic total to $78.7 million.
Completing the top 5 is “Ne Zha 2,” the historic Chinese animated sequel that is on the verge of becoming the seventh film to gross $2 billion worldwide before inflation adjustment. In its second weekend in American theaters, “Ne Zha 2” grossed $3 million from 800 theaters, but that is nothing compared to the record-shattering $153 million that it made in its fourth weekend in China, bringing its current global total to $1.89 billion.
The big stumble of the weekend was Lionsgate/Kingdom Story Company’s “The Unbreakable Boy,” which opened to just $2.4 million from 1,687 theaters. While the faith-based audience built by Kingdom enjoyed the film with an A on CinemaScore, it is opening below the $2.5 million tenth weekend of Disney’s “Mufasa,” which will cross $700 million in global grosses this week.
The overall domestic box office will cross $1 billion in the coming week, as it currently stands 19.7% ahead of the pace set in the first two months of 2024. But that will be eroded by a slower March, where films like “Mickey 17” and “Snow White” are not expected to match last year’s hits like the Warner Bros./Legendary pair “Dune: Part Two” and “Godzilla x Kong,” which both opened above $80 million and legged out for several weeks.
