Hollywood largely yielded to the Super Bowl over a sluggish box office weekend, with the survival thriller Send Help retaining its top spot for ticket sales while the Melania Trump documentary Melania plummeted sharply in its second week.
Super Bowl weekend consistently ranks among the quietest periods for cinema attendance, and this year proved particularly slow, marking the lowest for moviegoing.
Recognizing this trend, studios instead capitalized on the massive television audience tuning into the NFL broadcast, shifting their focus to advertising upcoming blockbusters.
Among the high-profile trailers set to air are The Walt Disney Co.’s Mandalorian and Grogu, Lionsgate’s Michael Jackson biopic Michael, and Universal Pictures’ The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
Across North American cinemas, the Disney-20th Century Studios release Send Help, directed by Sam Raimi, led all films with $10 million in its second weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.
With $53.7 million globally thus far, the R-rated survival thriller has proved a solid mid-budget success. Meanwhile, Disney saw its remarkably enduring animated feature Zootopia 2 surpass an impressive $1.8 billion worldwide in its eleventh week of release.
Melania, from Amazon MGM, added 300 theaters in its second weekend but dropped steeply with to $2.4 million in ticket sales, down 67 per cent from its much-discussed debut. The rapid downturn means the Brett Ratner-directed documentary is likely heading toward flop territory given its high price tag.
Amazon MGM paid $40 million for film rights, plus some $35 million to market it.
The North American total for Melania stands at $13.4 million. Amazon MGM has not released international figures, though they’re expected to be paltry.
Kevin Wilson, head of domestic distribution for the studio, said the movie’s box-office performance “is a critical first moment that validates our wholistic distribution strategy, building awareness, engagement, and provides momentum ahead of the film’s eventual debut on Prime Video.”
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The film’s ticket sales — which would be very good for a less expensive documentary — were a talking point throughout the week.
Late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel hammered the movie’s sales. Kimmel called them a “rigged outcome.”
Elsewhere in theaters, the Italy-set Kevin James romantic comedy Solo Mio debuted with a robust $7.2 million, a major win for the Christian-oriented Angel Studios.
Stray Kinds: The Dominate Experience, a K-pop concert film released by Bleecker Street, launched with $5.6 million. The Luc Besson-directed Bram Stoker adaptation Dracula opened with $4.5 million, a studio-best debut for the indie distributor Vertical.
One of the most unusual releases in theaters, however, remains the low-budget indie Iron Lung. The YouTube filmmaker Markiplier, whose real name is Mark Fischbach, self-financed and self-distributed the R-rated video game adaptation, along with writing, directing and starring in it.
In its second weekend, Iron Lung collected $6.2 million, bringing its two-week total to $31.2 million. It cost $3 million to make.
Top 10 movies by domestic box office
With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:
- Send Help, $10 million.
- Solo Mio, $7.2 million.
- Iron Lung, $6 million.
- Stray Kids: The Dominate Experience, $5.6 million.
- Dracula, $4.5 million.
- Zootopia 2, $4 million.
- Avatar: Fire and Ash, $3.5 million.
- The Strangers: Chapter 3, $3.5 million.
- Shelter, $2.4 million.
- Melania, $2.4 million.
