Audiences are making it clear which superhero film they prefer at the box office right now, as Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” has returned to the No. 1 spot in its fourth weekend in theaters while Warner Bros.’ “The Flash” has suffered a 72% second-weekend drop, the worst for the soon-to-be-finished DC Extended Universe.
“Across the Spider-Verse” earned $19.3 million this weekend, continuing its strong run as it passed $500 million in global grosses earlier this past week. With $317 million grossed domestically and over $525 million worldwide, “Across the Spider-Verse” is on the doorstep of passing the $563.7 million global total of the 2011 live-action/CGI hybrid “The Smurfs” and becoming Sony Pictures Animation’s highest-grossing movie ever.
“The Flash,” meanwhile, has collapsed from its $55 million opening to $15.3 million, suffering a second-weekend drop worse than that of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which had much more room to fall from its $106 million opening, and the 70% drop of James Gunn’s DC film “The Suicide Squad,” which came out during the early stages of the COVID box office recovery process in August 2021.
As noted in our box office analysis last week of the struggles of “The Flash” and Disney/Pixar’s “Elemental,” the DC film suffered from multiple problems, including tepid word-of-mouth upon release, the deep disinterest among casual audiences in DC given its impending reboot, and lead star Ezra Miller’s public scandals, which left Warner Bros. unable to build a marketing campaign around the actor playing the film’s title star like most superhero films.
Depending on how Sunday shakes out, “The Flash” could even fall to No. 4 on the charts behind Sony’s R-rated comedy “No Hard Feelings,” which is currently estimated for a $15.1 million opening from 3,208 theaters.
With a reported $45 million budget before marketing, the Jennifer Lawrence-starring “No Hard Feelings” still has work to do to turn a theatrical profit and must leg out among younger adult audiences looking for raunchy laughs. The film earned a B+ on CinemaScore and 4/5 on PostTrak, along with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 68% critics and 88% audience.
Back up in the No. 2 slot, Disney/Pixar’s “Elemental” is finding a few silver linings after its studio-worst $29.5 million opening, dropping just 37% to an $18.5 million second weekend total. The film also expanded to 23 new international markets and added $31.3 million overseas, giving it a total of $65.5 million domestic and $121.1 million worldwide.
With a $200 million budget before marketing, “Elemental” is still nowhere near the break-even point, but the stronghold indicates that it is at least finding very positive word-of-mouth among family audiences after they showed not much interest in the weeks leading up to release. With another original film, “Elio,” coming out in Spring 2024, Disney has work to do to build that buzz before it comes out with a stronger marketing campaign that takes into account the fact that Pixar’s name brand is no longer an instant sell for moviegoers.
Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” completes the Top 5 with $11.6 million in its third weekend, giving it a total of $123 million domestic and $341 million worldwide, nearly passing the domestic total of 2017’s “Transformers: The Last Knight” but nowhere near that film’s $605 million total thanks in large part to severely diminished numbers from China.
Just below “Transformers” is Focus Features’ “Asteroid City,” the latest movie from Wes Anderson that earned a solid $9 million from 1,675 theaters.
The fourth-wall-bending movie about a small town in 1950s western America that gets visited by an alien is doing better with critics than with audiences, earning Rotten Tomatoes scores of 76% critics and 62% audience along with a B on CinemaScore. However, with a running total of $10.2 million, “Asteroid City” is set to beat the $16 million domestic run of Anderson’s 2021 film “The French Dispatch.”
