Box office: ‘Barbie’ wins again with ‘Meg 2’ beating ‘Oppenheimer’ for second place

“Barbie” continued to reign over the box office, but it lost its beloved “Barbenheimer” marketing partner, as Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” fell to third place in favor of another movie from Warner Bros. Read on for the weekend box office report.

There was no stopping Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” which won its third weekend in a row with an estimated $53 million, a mere drop of 43% in its third weekend to bring its domestic total to $459.4 million. That puts it firmly into the top 25 for all-time domestic grossers. As of now “Barbie” is the year’s second-highest grossing movie in North America, and this weekend it also became the first movie directed solely by a woman to hit a billion worldwide. Now, that’s a glass ceiling worth shattering. This weekend, it made $74 million overseas to bring its international total to $572.3 million.

Warner took the top two spots as its new release, “Meg 2: The Trench,” the sequel to the prehistoric shark action movie starring Jason Statham, opened in second place with an estimated $30 million from 3,503 locations. Roughly $12 million of that amount came from Friday, including $3.2 million in earlier previews. The movie received horrid reviews before opening, though, and audiences only seemed slightly more pleased going by its “B-” CinemaScore, which does not bode well for the movie’s legs over the rest of August. Overseas, “Meg 2” exploded with $112 million with $53.3 million of that amount coming from China alone.

“Meg 2” knocked Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” down to third place with an estimated $28.7 million in its third weekend and $228.6 million domestic so far. The biopic also made another $52.8 million overseas to bring its international total to $324.4 million and its global gross to $552.9 million, putting it ahead of “Dunkirk” as Nolan’s fifth-highest grossing movie of all time. An even more impressive number is the fact that $114.2 million of that global take came from IMAX showings, where Nolan’s latest will hold court until August 16.

Paramount released the animated “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” on Wednesday with previews on Tuesday night, which amounted to a $10.2 million opening day – not enough to beat “Barbie” even for a single day. It made another $4.9 million on Thursday and brought in an estimated $28 million over the three-day weekend, adding up to $43.1 million over its first five days.

“Mutant Mayhem” received far better reviews than “Meg 2,” and it also received an “A” CinemaScore, making it another movie for which film critics and audiences were in sync, so it will probably do well over the rest of the slower month of August.

Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” was thrashed quite soundly by the new movie options, plummeting to fifth place with just under $9 million, down 63% from its opening weekend. It has grossed $42 million in North America since opening 10 days ago.

“Sound of Freedom” had its biggest drop since opening, falling 45% to sixth place with $7 million this weekend and $163.5 million domestic. For the past few weeks it’s been neck-and-neck with “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” which made $6.5 million this weekend to bring its total to $151 million. Considering how much more the latter cost to make, it not being able to pass “Sound of Freedom” could be an ongoing point of contention for Paramount in deciding whether to continue that Tom Cruise franchise after next year’s “Dead Reckoning” finale.

Another film that’s been doing quite well is the A24 horror movie, “Talk to Me,” which added another $6.3 million in its second weekend, dropping 40% from opening, which is generally great for independent horror, as is the movie’s $22.3 million domestic take.

Searchlight Studios didn’t expand the comedy “Theater Camp” as much as expected on Friday, only playing it in 555 theaters to bring in $570,000 this weekend for a total of $2.43 million overall.

Streamer MUBI released Ira Sachs’ “Passages” into three New York and L.A. locations where it made $64,069, averaging $21,356 per location. It will expand to more cities on Friday.

At this point, you would think that every single Gold Derby box office predictor would know to put “Barbie” in first place, and that was mostly the case, as well as most players having “Barbie” making between $50 million and $75 million. Only seven players had “Meg 2” opening in second place, though, with third place split between three movies. Twenty-four players had “Mutant Mayhem” taking fourth place, but that won’t matter since only seven players (at most) will go six-for-six this week.

On the other hand, a whopping 80 players went six-for-six in the July 28 game, and for once frequent board leader “Mellow Drama” had to settle for second place as “DLBartlett127” amassed a whopping 131,455 points to take the top spot.

There’s only one new major wide release on Friday, Universal’s “The Last Voyage of the Demeter,” an adaptation of a chapter from Bram Stoker‘s “Dracula” novel, so check back on Wednesday for Gold Derby’s weekend preview on how it might do.

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