After last weekend’s whimpering end to October — the most dismal month for the North American box office in decades — Hollywood is (sort of) beginning to get its groove back.
Disney’s Predator: Badlands, the eighth installment in a nearly 40-year-old sci-fi action franchise, delivered the biggest debut for a Predator movie ever. The blockbuster from Dan Trachtenberg (who also helmed 2022’s Prey) surpassed its $25 million tracking, debuting with $40 million ($80 million worldwide).
How?
In addition to critical praise (an 85 percent fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes), Sean McNulty notes that Badlands’ PG-13 rating was a boon. “Only one other film in the Predator franchise was PG-13 (2004’s Alien vs. Predator), and that is the second-highest-grossing film in the franchise now — or it will be after this one.”
Meanwhile, Paramount Skydance’s Colleen Hoover adaptation, Regretting You — which Sean deems “the little movie that could” — continues to capitalize on a lack of options for young women, nabbing $8 million in its third weekend. Incredibly, that represents just an eight percent drop from last week, which likewise fell only 30 percent from the film’s opening. Impressive.
“Everything in theatrical has become these giant, four-quadrant action-comedies,” Richard Rushfield says. “And when you do something a little different, serving a particular sector well, people are excited to feel like they have a movie that’s for them.”
Elsewhere on the docket: indie flops, courtesy of the befuddling wide-release strategy behind both Mubi’s $24 million Cannes pickup Die My Love with Jennifer Lawrence ($2.8 million) and Black Bear’s Sydney Sweeney pic, Christy — which suffered the ignominy of scoring one of the worst openings ever for a movie released on more than 2,000 screens ($1.3 million).
“All these movies seem to be following the same release pattern, which is, ‘Hey, there are all these screens open because there are no studio movies anymore, so let’s just open as big as we can even though there’s no market,’” says Richard. “So you just put it out there and get what you’re going to get in the first week, and if you paid $30 million to buy it, then tough luck.”
Plus: With less than two weeks to go, some simmering anticipation for Wicked: For Good.
