Box office: ‘Inside Out 2’ bests ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ in a close June-ending showdown
Things had been looking up for the entire month of June, and they ended on a high note with two movies making more than $50 million this weekend, the first time that’s happened since “Barbenheimer” last summer. Read on for the weekend box office report.
Despite the introduction of a new prequel to a popular franchise, Pixar’s animated sequel “Inside Out 2” held onto the top spot with another $57.4 million, down 43% from last weekend. Last week, “Inside Out 2” crossed the $400 million mark ahead of the weekend, and this weekend’s take helped push it to $469.3 million, a showing that’s on par with last year’s “Barbie” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” We’ll have to see if “Despicable Me 4” opening domestically on Wednesday puts the brakes on Pixar’s latest hit, though it won’t have any problem getting to $500 million and more.
“Inside Out 2” added another $108 million internationally this weekend, making it the first movie of 2024 to cross the $1 billion mark globally, with $545.5 million of that coming from overseas. After just three weekends, it’s already on a path to achieve similar global success as “Barbie” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” the top two movies over the past two years.
SEE ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ reviews: Lupita Nyong’o is ‘incredible’ in ‘unexpectedly excellent’ prequel
Intended to be one of Paramount’s bigger summer releases, the sci-thriller prequel, “A Quiet Place: Day One,” starring Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, and Djimon Hounsou, was released into 3,707 theaters on Friday after many positive late-breaking reviews. The prequel started off with $6.8 million in Thursday previews, which is slightly higher than the $6.6 million that “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” made in previews back in May.
After making $22.5 million on Friday (including those previews), Paramount has estimated the “Quiet Place” prequel to open in second place with $53 million, averaging over $14k per location. That’s a better opening than the $50 million opening for the original “Quiet Place” in 2018, and the $47 million opening for its sequel, which, to be fair, was released at the height of COVID in 2021. The prequel also received a “B+” CinemaScore, which is the same as the original movie received in 2018, and internationally, “Quiet Place” brought in $45.5 million for a global opening of $98.5 million.
Kevin Costner returned to the Western genre directing an ensemble cast for “Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1,” a movie that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May but has received mostly negative reviews. Undaunted, Warner Bros. released the movie, co-starring Sienna Miller and Sam Worthington, into 3,334 theaters where it grossed $4.1 million on Friday (including $800k from earlier previews) and an estimated $11 million for the weekend. That’s less than the $14 million that Costner’s last Western, “Open Range,” opened with twenty years ago.
SEE 2024 box office hits: Every movie that made more than $100 million
“Horizon” received an even worse “B-” CinemaScore, and neither of those things add up to people itching to see Chapter 2 when it’s released in August.
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence‘s “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” dropped to fourth place with $10.3 million, down 45% from last weekend, but it has grossed $165.2 million since opening four weeks ago, putting it close to “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” to become the second-best release of the summer. It grossed another $13.1 million internationally this weekend, for a global total of $332 million.
Prathyangira Cinemas released “Kalki 2898 AD” – reportedly India’s most expensive film ever – into 1,049 theaters on Thursday where it racked up $5.56m, including previews on Wednesday. It racked up a similar $5.6 million over the three-day weekend to open in fifth place with a four-day total of $11.2 million.
Jeff Nichols‘ “The Bikeriders” took a mighty fall in its second weekend, dropping 66% to sixth place with $3.3 million to bring its domestic total to $16.2 million.
Yorgos Lanthimos‘ absurdist anthology, “Kinds of Kindness,” starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, and more, expanded into 490 theaters, which allowed it to move into ninth place with $1.5 million and $2 million total in North America. Reviews for Lanthimos’ latest have been solid with 74% on Rotten Tomatoes, which may be why Searchlight is expanding it even wider over the coming 4th of July weekend.
Crunchyroll’s theatrical anime releases have been faltering, and the Sony subsidiary only released “Blue Lock The Movie” into 857 theaters this weekend, which didn’t help it much, as it barely opened with a million dollars this weekend, not enough to get into the top 10.
Sony Classics ended up giving Christy Hall‘s “Daddio,” starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn, a much wider release into 628 theaters, though weekend box office has not been reported at the time of this writing.
A24 expanded Annie Baker‘s drama, “Janet Planet,” into 315 theaters in its second weekend where it brought in just $187k, averaging less than $600 per location.
Players in the box office prediction game were fairly split between whether “Inside Out 2” or “A Quiet Place” would win the weekend with the former getting a slight advantage. Only eight players predicted that “Kalki” would open in fifth place, so the players who predicted that are likely to come out on top this weekend.
There were roughly 14 players who picked five-out-of-six correct in the June 21 game, though leaderboard regular “Dan C” scored the most points (30527) with two well-placed Super Bets.
This coming week is the 4th of July weekend with Universal releasing the animated sequel “Despicable Me 4,” as well as A24 releasing Ti West’s horror film, “MaXXXine,” starring Mia Goth. Check back on Wednesday for the weekend preview, and you can also see what else is opening in July in our monthly box office preview.
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