It’s no mirage. Despite a strong challenge from last week’s champ (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse), Transformers: Rise of the Beasts rolled to the top of the box-office standings. Optimus Prime and company took in an estimated $60.5 million in North America—not enough for the Autobots to return to Cybertron, but certainly plenty to give everyone a new pair of windshield wipers and then some.
Rise of the Beasts did even better overseas, banking $110 million (including $40 million in China). Clearly, the charismatic pull of robots in disguise knows no boundaries.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse kept the box-office tourney close, webbing $55.4 million in its own right to finish a strong second. Across the Spider-Verse has now swung to $228.8 million overall stateside, which makes it the fifth-most lucrative movie of 2023.
What’s fourth for the year? I’m glad you asked. It’sThe Little Mermaid.The movie got nickels and dimes aplenty, dollars and pennies galore. It earned $22.8 million this weekend to push its total take to $228.8 million. But who cares? No big deal. It wants more.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 continues its own impressive roll, flying to $7 million to finish fourth this weekend. It has earned $335.4 million (which, by the way, makes it the year’s second biggest movie—wedged between The Super Mario Bros. Movie at No. 1 and Avatar: The Way of Water at No. 3).
The Boogeyman closed out the top five with a $6.9 million weekend.
3 Responses
-The Little Mermaid seems to be underperforming internationally, but I’m hearing very good things about the movie from the people who saw it. I have no interest in “The Flash” as a movie, but I think its reception is going to be very mixed, partially because of Miller and frankly DC movie canon just confuses me now. If “Dungeons and Dragons” barely made a profit (I sure hope it makes a little something), “Shazam 2” seems to have flopped, and that doesn’t fill me with confidence for DC’s performances going forward (even Marvel seems to be inconsistent now).
Guardians 3 was a good movie, but I wouldn’t take children because of the … difficult animal scenes.
-I’m looking forward to seeing The Little Mermaid DVD when it comes to my library. The live action Disney remakes usually feel off to me, but I think I will at least enjoy this one a little.
I did like Dungeons and Dragons. It does feel a bit like the Lord of the Rings, which is why my sister wanted us to see it. It felt a bit like something that would have been much more popular fifteen years ago. It also felt a bit like National Treasure.
I want to see the Flash movie too, but when the lead actor has been accused of a number of violent crimes, it really makes me just wish they’d get Grant Gustin to play the movie version of the Flash instead.
-Yeah. I had a mediocre opinion of Beauty and the Beast (though I thought Watson brought her A-game like she always does), but the trailer I saw for Little Mermaid right before Guardians started was very good.
I adored Honor Among Thieves and wished it had performed better, but that would likely have involved not coming out during the long-legged John Wick 4 and right before Mario. As for Flash, I’ll probably use the library-DVD option as well so I don’t have to give money to it.