WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE FOR WEEK ENDING AUGUST 4, 2024
A film's total gross for the entire previous week is followed by its worldwide total to date.
1. Deadpool Vs. Wolverine -- $380m/$824m worldwide
2. Despicable Me 4 –– $74m/$752m ww
3. Successor -- $61m/$367m ww
4. Twisters -- $53m/$274m ww
5. Inside Out 2 –– $49m/$1,555m ww
7. Decoded -- $19m/$25m ww
8. Munjya -- $16m ww to date (released June 7)
9. Longlegs -- $14m/$92m ww
10. Pilot -- $12m ww debut
11. Evacuate From The 21st Century -- $11m ww debut
12. A Place Called Silence -- $9m/$185m ww
13. Raayan -- $9m/$18m ww
14. Harold and the Purple Crayon -- $9m ww debut
15. A Quiet Place: Day One –– $5m/$259m ww
16. Bai She: Fu Sheng aka White Snake -- $5m previews
17. Your Name (2017 Jap ani) -- $4m/$400m ww
18. Bad Boys: Ride or Die –– $3m/$398m ww
19. Under One Person aka I Am Nobody aka The Outcast -- $3m/$16m ww
20. Detective Conan: The Multimillion... -- $2m/$128m ww
21. Bad Newz -- $2m/$13m ww
22. Pleasant Goat and Grey Wolf 9 -- $2m/$11m ww
23. Upstream -- $2m ww debut
24. The Firing Squad -- $1.6m
25. Kalki 2898 A.D. –– $1m/$132m ww
26. Fly Me To The Moon -- $1m/$38m ww
27. MaXXXine -- $1m/$20m ww
28. Escape -- $1m/$17m ww
29. Kinds of Kindness -- $1m/$13m ww
30. The Fabulous Four -- $1m/$2m ww
Bold: movies that have tripled their reported budgets.
This makes them likely hits from box office alone.
ww: worldwide
mb: a film's budget so $50mb means it cost $50m to make.
Below is an analysis of the box office, notes on individual films and at the bottom an explanation of the chart and how it is derived.
ANALYSIS
What lessons should we learn from this week's box office? The same lessons we should learn from any week's box office: some movies do well and others don't and it rarely has to do with any major trends. Every movie stands or falls on its own. People are not sick of superhero movies. Look at the tremendous success of Deadpool Vs. Wolverine. People were not "trained" to only watch Pixar films on Disney+. Look at the tremendous success of Inside Out 2. People are not sick of franchises and sequels and spin-offs. See...Deadpool Vs. Wolverine and Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4 and Twisters (even if it's not yet a hit, it opened) and A Quiet Place: Day One and Bad Boys: Ride or Die.
Oh but people definitely do not want to see films based on children's picture books (Harold and the Purple Crayon) or comedies starring older actors (The Fabulous Four) because those two flopped. Or maybe, just maybe, those movies just didn't work. And the next film based on a picture book or starring older, beloved stars will work. industry folk always want to spot trends and learn the magic formula so every movie will be a hit. It doesn't work that way. Never has and never will. Each film stands alone. Sorry!
Here's a reminder: since studios are releasing about 25% FEWER movies than they did on average from 2016-2019, it's only reasonable to expect a box office total this year that's 25% lower than average. If you don't release movies, people can't go see them. So it will be a good 2024 at the box office if we end up hitting about $8.4 billion at the North American box office. And if studios get their release schedule back to robust levels in 2025 (including a good mix of big budget, mid-size movies and smaller fare) then we'll have every reason to assume box office will return to the $10b-$11b mark. Anyone who says the sky is falling if 2024 hits $8b is just wrong.
MISSING IN ACTION
The Count of Monte Cristo – this film has been poorly tracked from the beginning.
Last week it grossed $6m worldwide. This week, it's disappeared again, presumably for good.
NOTES: info on new movies and international flicks not on most people's radar; I've decided to put notes for every film and keep them as long as the movie is on the charts. The "mb" refers to a film's reported budget, in millions of US $. So $40mb means a budget of $40m.
1. Deadpool Vs. Wolverine -- reported $200mb means it's a massive hit. I assume Ryan Reynolds and Hugh
Jackman will have to back up their SUVs to haul away their payday. But still.
2. Despicable Me 4 – reported budget of $100m? Surely Steve Carell and the rest are demanding big bucks
by now. While we usually accept a reported budget, our eyebrows are sometimes raised in skepticism.
3. Successor -- Chinese comedy about poor family whose entire hopes and dreams depend on their son.
A trailer with no subtitles gives me a vague idea of the film's tone and style but I'm not sure what exactly
the son is supposed to do, other than score well at school? Given the scope of the film, I'm sure its budget
wasn't massive and so it's almost certainly a hit from box office alone.
4. Twisters -- a $150mb means I'm still not calling this a hit.
5. Inside Out 2 –– its total is now $1.555 billion, so it needs another $109m to pass 2019's
remake of The Lion King and become the highest grossing animated film of all time.
7. Decoded -- a Chinese thriller set during WW II when an autistic math whiz is recruited to break codes for a secret spy agency.
8. Munjya -- this Hindi supernatural comedy from India was off my radar. It opened modestly but proved a
word of mouth hit and has now grossed $16m since opening on June 7. Since the budget is $3.5m and it's
grossed $16m to date, it's a hit! Not to worry: they've left room for a sequel.
9. Longlegs -- with a budget reportedly less than $10m, this is blowing past $100m and def a hit, even if
star Nicolas Cage gets to cash in as the film hits certain marks. What a long, strange career he's had.
10. Pilot -- in this Korean comedy, a male commercial pilot is very handsome and so popular he's even a
celebrity of sorts. Then he makes a foolish mistake and can't get a job. So he makes like Dustin Hoffman
and poses as a woman (specifically pretending to be his own little sister) so he can get back to work.
Presumably this concept will not travel well to the U.S.
11. Evacuate From The 21st Century -- a Chinese action sci-fi film (and maybe a comedy?) where three teens in 1999 send their souls to 2019 and accidentally save the world. All I did as a teen was sneak a beer once in a while.
12. A Place Called Silence -- this is a Chinese remake of a 2022 Taiwanese thriller...written
and directed by the same person as the original. It seems a sort of thriller built around school bullying.
13. Raayan -- A Tamil action drama from India with a young man training himself all his life to get revenge for the murder of his parents. He gets his chance!
14. Harold and the Purple Crayon ($40mb) -- I suppose anything can work. But the picture book has no real
plot, just a gentle, wordless spin on imagination. You are literally starting from scratch to turn it into a movie.
And even if they have a plot, it's usually far more suited to a short film (like the best TV specials made from
Dr. Seuss. In this case, it was already turned into a TV series with 13 delightful episodes featuring narration
from Sharon Stone and music by Van Dyke Parks (among others) that capture the charm of the original book
to perfection. This should never have been made. Plus it's budget is a reported $40m? That seems suspiciously
low.
15. A Quiet Place: Day One –– it cost about $70m to make so this is a hit. But did they plan for a
sequel to this prequel?
16. Bai She: Fu Sheng aka White Snake -- I believe this Chinese film (perhaps animated) made $5m
in previews. ComScore calls it White Snake but I believe it's a sequel to the 2019 animated film White
Snake and its sequel Green Snake. What I found on IMDB is a movie called Bai She: Fu Sheng which
officially opens August 10, so maybe it previewed? I'm flying blind here, folks!
17. Your Name (2017 Jap ani) -- This acclaimed Japanese animated movie is playing in China
and just hit $400m worldwide.
18. Bad Boys: Ride or Die –– They're claiming a $100m budget but with Will Smith and Martin
Lawrence surely getting major coin for their participation, I'm being generous to call
this a hit, even at $400m. But no one is going to lose money and Bad Boys 5 will happen.
19. Under One Person aka I Am Nobody aka The Outcast -- A Chinese/Japanese collaboration based on a Chinese webcomic about a young man attacked by zombies in a cemetery who discovers the martial arts his grandfather taught him is rare and highly prized and bad people want it. Go! The title variation is due to a Chinese title into Japanese into English, no doubt. "The Outcast" is the subtitle, which ComScore used as the film's title. It was turned into an anime series with five seasons and counting. The film is a live action adaptation.
20. Detective Conan: The Multimillion... -- the 27th film in the animated franchise spun off
Case Closed manga series. No budget mentioned but they keep making them so....
21. Bad Newz -- the Punjabi comedy is a modest grosser but it's likely the budget was v small too.
22. Pleasant Goat and Grey Wolf 9 aka Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The World Guardians -- this is the ninth film in a franchise spun off from a TV series. In the show, the goats pleasantly eat grass while avoiding the clumsy wolf that wants to eat them. In the movies, as often as not they band together against outside forces. Sometimes the franchise is translated as Pleasant Goat and Big Gray Wolf. The movies were trending down a touch, but the last one bounced back up to $20m ww gross and they keep making them so this is clearly in the micro-budget realm for an animated film.
23. Upstream -- a Chinese film, I assume since it opened in that market. Can't track down a trailer or any info.
24. The Firing Squad -- faith-based film based on the true story of drug traffickers who find Jesus when arrested in Bali and sentenced to death. Stars Cuba Gooding Jr,. Kevin Sorbo and Eric Roberts! I'm no expert but the poster features what seems to me is a very poorly arranged firing squad.
25. Kalki 2898 A.D. –– this sci-fi epic Telugu/Indian film is intended as the first in a franchise. It is
budgeted at $70m, a massive amount for the Indian film market. Since it's almost done with just
$132m, I assume we won't be seeing Kalki 2898 A.D. II.
26. Fly Me To The Moon -- an adult romantic comedy should not cost $100m to make. But even if it were
delivered at $40m (stars Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum don't come cheap), it would be a flop. It
happens.
27. MaXXXine -- you wanna make money? Make a cheap horror film.
28. Escape -- $1m/$17m ww
29. Kinds of Kindness ($15mb) -- Winding down at $13m, it didn't even match its $15m reported
budget. But given it's an anthology film, this is a success of a sort and it will prove a lucrative library
title.
30. The Fabulous Four -- It's Bridesmaids for the senior set, with Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Megan Mullally and Sheryl Lee Ralph in on the hijinks.
THE CHART AND HOW IT IS COMPILED
This column is a week by week tracking of box office around the world. It is compiled by pulling from every possible source: ComScore, Box Office Mojo, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, charts for countries like China and India and South Korea, individual stories in trade or general interest newspapers, Wikipedia and anyone else discussing box office.
The weekly charts contain the total gross for every movie in theaters around the world during the last seven days. If a movie opens on a Thursday, we include all the box office from Thursday through Sunday. If it opens on a Tuesday night, we cover all six days. If it opens on a Sunday (as some movies do in India or wherever, depending on holidays), then we include the box office for that one day. If a movie was released before the current week, we include the box office for all seven days. Why ignore the box office from Monday through Thursday, as most charts do when tallying the latest weekend and focusing on new releases?
How do we arrive at this number? We take the total worldwide box office we have for a movie, subtract from it the previous week's total worldwide box office...and that's how much it made during the past seven days. Naturally, territories and movies sometimes fall through the cracks but we are as up to date as we can be, given our dependence on other outlets for the basic info.
First, I list box office on every film we can from around the world. Any movie grossing at least US $1 million will be on here if we get info on it. Then I give some thoughts on the box office overall and individual films. That's followed by notes where I give info on every movie, with a focus on films not from Hollywood. So Despicable Me 4 you know. But a small Korean comedy or French drama? That I'll identify for you as best I can.
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