Thor: Love and Thunder held onto the top spot at the weekend box office, but the film has suffered a sharp decline since its opening, suggesting that word of mouth is very mixed for Thor’s fourth entry.
Thor: Love and Thunder earned $46 million over the weekend, a sharp 68% drop in business. I predicted $50 million for the weekend, which would be a 65% drop from weekend to weekend. The second weekend drop is among the worst for the MCU. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness dropped 67% in its second weekend, while Black Widow and Spider-Man: No Way Home matched it with 68%. The big difference is that Black Widow was also available on Disney+, which took into account the weekend drop, while Spider-Man: No Way Home was a holiday player and Christmas fell on a Saturday in its second weekend. Thor’s second results were largely due to mixed word of mouth.
I gave the film a “B+” CinemaScore last weekend, one notch below most Marvel efforts. It shows that the word of mouth isn’t top notch, and that perhaps Taita Waititi’s more humorous approach has gone a little too far this time around. That being said, even if local business is dying down faster than expected, Tor’s global success is something to brag about. Worldwide, the film earned $498 million, with a domestic total of $233.2 million. The film will make over $300 million in the States and Marvel will have another hit, but I suspect they are a bit concerned about the mixed response to Phase 4 so far.
In second place is Minions: The Rise of Gru with $26 million. That’s down 44% from last weekend and relatively close to what I predicted the film would take this weekend. Despite the arrival of Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, Minions was still the top choice for kids and families. It doesn’t seem like another animated entry really affected their business. To date, Minions: Rise of Gru has earned $262.6 million domestically and $532 million worldwide.
Debuting one spot higher than my estimates in third place was Where The Crawdads Sing , which earned $17 million. I predicted $16 million for the weekend, but both numbers indicate that the film, based on a huge bestseller, performed well as counter-programming for female audiences. Reviews have not been good for the film (36% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing), but the target audience seems to like it. The audience score was 96%, while the film also earned an “A-” CinemaScore. Its budget is $24 million, but I’m not sure how this one will play out in the coming weeks, but I suspected it would be a moderate hit for the studio and a solid investment in the end.
Top Gun: Maverick took fourth place with $12 million, down just 23% in its eighth weekend of release. The film is an absolute behemoth and has defied all odds to be a typical summer blockbuster. There were no sharp drops and it has remained in the top five box office charts since its opening on Memorial Day weekend. The film is now Paramount’s highest-grossing film at the domestic box office, surpassing Titanic’s original $600.7 million to $617.9 million, and is also their biggest global hit with a current worldwide gross of $1.23 billion.
Rounding out the top five is Elvis with earnings of $7.6 million. It continues to be a shining light of box office success for older people as they continue to come out for the movie. There are also statistics that indicate that the film, in its final weekends, is starting to skew younger as well. All this made Elvis a very important hit. It will be considered the film that brought older moviegoers back to theaters. Elvis has already earned $106.2 million at the domestic box office and $185.6 million on an $85 million budget.
What do YOU think of this weekend’s box office results?
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