Movie theaters and Hollywood will be happy to put this month behind them. Like, way, way behind them. The pandemic years of 2020-21 notwithstanding, this is about to go down as the worst March since 1995, when all films grossed $313 million. This year the number is headed below $400 million for the first time since the country was not in lockdown or just warming up to a new vaccine. Even 2020, with half a March, grossed over $253 million. Given the way the month’s best chance for a reasonably high-grosser is performing though, this could also end up being the first time this month has not produced a $100 million film since 2004.
Earlier this week on Business First AM, I stated that the latest Jason Statham/David Ayer collaboration had a chance to overtake Snow White if the Disney film fell hard enough. While A Working Man may not have exactly put up Beekeeper numbers, it didn’t matter, as $15.2 million was enough to take the No. 1 spot this weekend. Last year’s The Beekeeper began with a $16.6 million weekend and became a solid hit with over $66 million domestic and $150 million globally. A Working Man’s numbers are actually really solid for Statham. Apart from battling a giant shark, being Expendable, beekeeping, or transporting something, this is better than any of the other Statham headliners. This one clearly draws from the success of last year’s film, though it isn’t as well reviewed and may drop off faster, but for now, the Statham/Ayer team-up is working. The $40 million production only needs to make two-thirds of Beekeeper’s final gross to break even for Amazon/MGM. It is at $30.2 million globally.
The numbers were pretty clear last week that Snow White was headed for a rough run. After it failed to clear $100 million worldwide last week, virtually every path to breaking even was demolished. The only question that remained was just how bad could it get. How does a 66% drop in weekend two sound? Not good, Doc. $14.2 million was Snow White’s haul, lower than Dumbo’s $18.2 million sophomore weekend. That puts it now $10 million behind the elephant’s pace with $66 million, and it leaves us to ask whether it can achieve $100 million domestically. The good news is that it is still possible. The bad news is that it’s a moot point for its bottom line.
Just last year, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire opened to $45 million this month and dropped hard (-65.4%) to a $15.5 million second weekend. In 10 days it had grossed $73.2 million and finished its run with over $113 million. In 2019, Dumbo was higher than that with $76.2 million but finished with only $114.7 million. The wild card is that family audiences will be drawn to Minecraft next weekend, which could put Snow White even further behind the pace of those two films. Frozen Empire never dropped more than 42.7% in its next six weeks. Not everyone is reading those hit pieces on Rachel Zegler that the trades published. Maybe audiences are just rejecting another less-than-stellar effort. Dumbo was at 46% on the Tomatometer. At time of publication, Snow White is at 40%. It could not even win that battle, though with just $143 million worldwide on a $270 million budget, “win” is not a word that will be associated with Disney’s latest live-action bomb.
Off the television and into theatres again is The Chosen this time with Last Supper – Part 1. The three Chosen events in 2024 in February and March dwindled from $5.94 million down to $3.6 and $3.27 million over the course of eight TV episodes shown over three ticket prices. This one began with $11.4 million, unseating the Season 3 kickoff in 2022 that opened to $8.7 million. That release, plus last year’s Feb. 2 kickoff and the Christmas with The Chosen experience, all grossed over $12 million, which Last Supper will surpass shortly. Part 2 opens this week and Part 3 drops the weekend before Easter on Apr. 11.
That’s right – a television show bested out two other theatrical newcomers. Jaume Collet-Serra and Blumhouse’s The Woman In The Yard opened to $9.4 million, a reasonably solid one for the $12 million production and higher than either Companion ($9.3 million) and Heart Eyes ($8.3 million). The Monkey is still the year’s horror champ with $37 million. Genre fans had a choice between the film not screened in advance for press and the film that got mixed but mostly positive reviews from its premiere at SXSW. Alex Scharfman’s Death of a Unicorn with Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd opened to $5.79 million. Last year, A24 opened Heretic to $10.8 million and Maxxxine to $6.7 million. Still, Unicorn became their 10th-best wide release opening ever. It is just A24’s third film released into over 3,000 theaters. Civil War and Heretic were the others. Universal’s Love Hurts was the lowest opener in 3,000+ theaters this year with $5.8 million, marginally higher than Unicorn, and it went on to gross $15.6 million. Death of a Unicorn reportedly cost just $15 million.
GKids re-release Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke into 330 IMAX theaters this weekend and it grossed $4 million. That is more than its entire domestic run during its release in 1999 by Miramax. It started with $144,446 in 8 theaters and grew to $2.37 million, never released in more than 129 theaters. Globally over time, the film has grossed roughly $175 million.
Beyond that, nothing else made over $3 million this weekend. Captain America: Brave New World came in seventh with $2.8 million driving its total up to $196.5 million. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania made $1.2 million in its seventh weekend and a grand total of about $2.5 million in the weeks after. Captain is now doing better on the weekdays than Ant-Man did, and that could be the difference in squeaking it over $200 million domestic. Globally the film is at $410 million, and as much as this has been labeled a disappointment, it is nowhere near Disney’s worst disasters post-pandemic.
Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag finished its third weekend with $2.1 million and just over $18.7 million total. Bong Joon-Ho’s Mickey 17 is only up to $43.5 million domestic after a $1.9 million fourth weekend. Globally the $118 million production has grossed $121 million. Paramount’s Novocaine lost 1,000 theaters in just its third weekend. That’s really something for a film that led the (admittedly weak) box office just two weeks ago. Another $1.4 million has the film at $18.7 million and about to fall below its challenger (Black Bag) from two weeks ago.
Peter Cattaneo’s The Penguin Lessons with Steve Coogan nearly got itself into the top 10, making $1.2 million in just 1,017 theaters. Just below that is Barry Levinson’s The Alto Knights with just $1.1 million. The dueling DeNiro mob tale that cost $45 million has grossed just $5.5 million domestic in ten days and just $8.9 million worldwide. Dog Man finally fell out of the top 10 in its ninth week with $850,000; its total is now at $97.2 million. The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie made $700,000 for a total of over $8 million. The Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land made $135,000 to bring its total up to $2 million. Our thoughts are with co-director Basel Adra after the horrific attack on him this past week.
Focus’ release of James Griffith’s The Ballad of Wallis Island made $92,000 in four theaters. That gives it the second-best per-theater average of the year to date for a multi-theater release with $23,000, besting Captain America: Brave New World’s $21,643. That would have been the fifth-best PTA of a four-theater launch last year behind The Brutalist, A Real Pain, Sing Sing and I Saw the TV Glow. The film expands to around 50 theaters next week. The top PTA of 2025 for a film opening in at least two theaters now belongs to The Friend. Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s film with Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, and Apollo the Great Dane released by Bleecker Street grossed an estimated $66,853 in two NY theaters. Meanwhile, the documentary The Encampments grossed $76,419 exclusively at New York’s Angelika.
Theaters are hoping for even a proportional Super Mario Bros. Movie opening next weekend for A Minecraft Movie, which has been in development for a decade and had release dates shuffled around before it even began filming back in 2023. It is expected to have the second-best opening of the year. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s anthology, Freaky Tales with Pedro Pascal, which debuted at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, will be released by Lionsgate. IFC also releases The Luckiest Man In America, starring Paul Walter Hauser and Walton Goggins in a film about an infamous winner of the TV game show Press Your Luck.
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast. [box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by Dan Smith/©Amazon MGM Studios
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