The MCU continues to be America’s uber-franchise, as SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (Columbia/Sony) became the first summer mega-movie in several weeks to fully live up to expectations. Few films have opened on the Tuesday before a Thursday July 4th, so comparisons aren’t exact, but Far From Home earned $91.5M on its Tuesday-Thursday (The Amazing Spider-Man, which had a Tuesday opening before a Wednesday Independence Day, took in $75M in its first 3 days), and according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its Friday rose 25% from the holiday to $31.5M. That puts it on track for a 3-day weekend as high as $90M, and a $181.5M total by Sunday. Its US total could be 5-10% higher than the $334.2M for its immediate predecessor Homecoming, especially since there are no new giant action movies on the way until Hobbes & Shaw on August 2, as the Marvel juggernaut rolls into what it’s calling “Phase Four.” (It’s unlikely, however, that Far From Home will pass the $403.7M of 2002’s pre-MCU Spider-Man or the $373.6M of 2004’s Spider-Man 2.)
Word of mouth caught up quickly with MIDSOMMAR (A24), which isn’t a surprise since the trippy, critically hailed film that its director Ari Aster accurately calls “horror-adjacent” is something of the same kind of marketing bait and switch of Mother!, which also dived quickly at the box office. The opening Wednesday was $3M, but that plunged 56% to $1.3M on Thursday, and although Friday was back to $2.2M, the weekend may not see $6M, for a $10.4M total by Sunday. A $25M US total seems like a stretch, and even that would be far behind the $44.1M for Aster’s Hereditary.
Holdovers were led by TOY STORY 4 (Pixar/Disney), down a mild 31% to $11.8M from last Friday, better than the 3rd Friday drops of The Incredibles 2 (-44%) and Finding Dory (-42%), although those weren’t in holiday weeks. A $35M weekend would keep it on track for $400M in the US.
YESTERDAY (Universal) dropped 45% to $3.3M from last Friday’s opening for a likely $10M weekend, on its way to a fair $55M in the US. That’s not much below the $59.7M for writer Richard Curtis’s Love Actually, albeit in unadjusted 2003 dollars.
ANNABELLE COMES HOME (New Line/Warners) fell 50% from last Friday to $3.3M, for a likely $10M weekend and $70M US total, the lowest of the Conjuring universe (other than The Curse of La Llorona, which wasn’t marketed as a direct installment), but still considerable for a low-budget thriller.
ALADDIN (Disney) continued to show remarkable word of mouth, down 10% to $2.7M on its 7th Friday, and heading toward an $8.5M weekend and a US total that might pass $340M. Aladdin has gone over $900M worldwide.
THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS 2 (Illumination/Universal) is holding well at a relatively low level, down 24% to $1.6M on its 5th Friday, for a $5M weekend and a US total stretching toward $150M, a long way from the $368.4M earned by the first Pets.
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