It was a twist befitting of the man whose film sits atop the U.S. box-office this weekend, because despite predictions that the honour would either belong to last week’s champ Space Jam: A New Legacy or Paramount’s G.I. Joe spin-off Snake Eyes, it was M. Night Shyamalan’s tides of time tale Old which took the number one spot with $16.5M.
Both Snake Eyes and Space Jam had been expected to fight it out at around the $30M mark, but the Lebron James and Looney Toons sequel was dunked on with a huge 69% decline from its $31M opening weekend, scoring $9.5M in its sophomore frame. Snake Eyes fared even worse, despite opening in 2nd place its tally was a meagre $13.3M, and its overseas gross can’t cushion the blow for the $88M budgeted movie, as it was only able to add $4M from 37 markets.
With the opposition washed away by poor reviews and slower footfall, the weekend was left to M. Night Shyamalan’s divisive thriller, which almost matched its $18M production costs with an opening gross of $16.5M. Old also took in $6.5M from overseas territories. Not only was it a success for Shyamalan’s wallet, with the director self-financing his own movies these days, but it made for a number one film that was refreshingly free of IP or sequel status.
One of the films that falls into that bracket is Marvel’s Black Widow, which added a further $11.6M to a domestic cume that now stands at $154M, and $314M worldwide. That number excludes the money made from Disney + Premier Access.
F9 achieved a pandemic milestone (aren’t we all sick of that phrase?) by adding $4.7M in its fifth weekend of release, thus sending it across the $600M global tally, making it the biggest grossing Hollywood movie since cinemagoing was irrevocably changed in 2020.
The full chart can be seen over at Box Office Mojo.
