Oscar weekend is a slow weekend for the box office, as Marvel Studios’ “Captain America: Brave New World” easily held on to the No. 1 spot with a third weekend total of $15 million.
That’s slightly better than the $12.8 million third weekend of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” back in 2023, a weekend in which “Creed III” was the No. 1 film and pulled premium format screens away from Marvel. With a running domestic total of $164 million, “Brave New World” is back on pace to pass $200 million domestic, though finishing in break-even territory is still the best-case scenario with a running global total of just $341.8 million
In second is the sole newcomer of the top 5: Focus Features’ “Last Breath,” a true story undersea thriller starring Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu that grossed $7.8 million from 3,010 locations. It is a remake of director Alex Parkinson’s 2019 documentary of the same name about the rescue of a saturation diver whose oxygen line was severed hundreds of feet under the sea with no light.
Acquired last year by Focus for $5 million, “Last Breath” has been well received with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 77% critics and 91% audience along with a B+ on CinemaScore.
Neon’s “The Monkey” is in third, holding decently in its second weekend with $6.4 million for a $24.6 million domestic total. The family films “Paddington in Peru” and “Dog Man” complete the top 5 in a narrow race for the No. 4 slot, with “Paddington” currently getting the edge with $4.4 million while “Dog Man” has $4.2 million. The Sony/StudioCanal-labeled “Paddington” now has a U.S. total of $31.3 million after three weekends while the DreamWorks-produced “Dog Man” stands at $84 million after five weekends.
The sluggish weekend kicks off a March that is expected to be substantially slower than last year’s as top films like Disney’s “Snow White,” Warner Bros.’ “Mickey 17” and Paramount’s “Novocaine” are not expected to earn the $80 million opening weekends of “Dune: Part Two” or “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” “Mickey 17,” the latest Bong Joon-ho film, will hit theaters next weekend after receiving largely positive reviews from its Berlin Film Festival premiere, but is only tracking for a $20 million U.S. launch.
