These pandemic-era box-office reports have become a depressing list of underperforming tentpoles and caveat related statistics, but Free Guy really is turning into the story of the little guy that could with the news that it only eased -34% from its already impressive opening weekend to post a summer’s best sophomore frame of $18.8M at the U.S. box office.
The Disney/20th Century Studios’ film took its domestic cume to a 10-day total of $58.8M, and now has a realistic chance of cracking the $100M mark, which considering the current cinemagoing landscape would equate to one of the success stories of 2021. The Ryan Reynolds action-comedy also added another $53.1M from overseas markets, bringing its current worldwide gross to $111.9 million. There should be plenty more mileage in this one before the 45-day theatrical window expires and the film is available to stream on Disney+.
Chasing it to the top spot was the big-screen debut for omnipresent canine cartoon Paw Patrol: The Movie, which despite being available for free to 45 million homes on Paramount+ still managed to overperform to the tune of $13M. Paw Patrol continued to be a “good boy” overseas, where $21.5M was added, bringing the worldwide total to $34.5 million.
Elsewhere it was animals of a different kind, with turkeys galore in the shape of Hugh Jackman sci-fi Reminiscence, which is something nobody will be doing about the film if the $2M opening weekend is anything to go by. Even with a date-and-date HBO Max release, that’s still a pretty dire return. It isn’t alone though, because despite terrific reviews for Rebecca Hall’s horror The Night House, that was locked out with $2.8M, as was Lionsgate’s thriller The Protege, with the Samuel L. Jackson, Maggie Q, and Michael Keaton action-thriller stiffing with $2.9M.
You can check out the full chart, which includes decent holds for Jungle Cruise and Don’t Breathe 2 over at BoxOfficeMojo.