In today’s Box Office Breakdown, we analyze seven new releases:
20th Century’s Send Help
Markiplier Studios’ Iron Lung
Amazon MGM’s Melania
Black Bear’s Shelter
A24’s The Moment
1-2 Special’s A Poet
Janus Films’ The Love That Remains
Plus, a full breakdown of the top ten at the box office this weekend.
This is a wild weekend at the box office…
Sam Raimi, who has only directed one film in the last 13 years, topped the box office with his new studio horror film, Send Help. He started off in indie horror with Evil Dead and transitioned to massive superhero IP with Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.
In second place at the box office is YouTuber Markiplier, with 38.2M followers, for his self-distributed horror sci-fi Iron Lung.
And in third place was Amazon MGM’s Melania, which had the institutional financial support of Amazon, which spent an outsized amount to guarantee a strong result.
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20th Century’s Send Help took #1 at the box office with $20M domestic. Internationally, it has earned $8.1M, bringing its worldwide total to $28.1M.
This is the latest film from Sam Raimi who has directed some box office smash hits, all connected to previously existing IP:
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
$187M opening
$955.8M worldwide
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
$79M opening
$493.3M worldwide
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
$151.1M opening
$887.4M worldwide
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
$88.2M opening
$785.4M worldwide
Spider-Man (2002)
$114.8M opening
$810.9M worldwide
Even though Send Help paled in comparison to the above, for an original horror film, it opened 3x above the average. However, if this launches a sequel/franchise, it’s right on par with the average opening for those films.
It’s nice to see Raimi return to his horror roots. The first film he directed was The Evil Dead (1981), which sparked the cult series of 5 films across 4 decades ($303M WW BO total). The newest one, Evil Dead Burn, is coming this July.
Send Help’s opening is pretty much on par with Raimi’s last horror film:
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
$15.8M opening
$90.8M worldwide
Send Help has strong star power with Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien so even though it cost $40M to make, we’re optimistic it’ll recoup theatrically.
The film had a strong per/screen average of $5,755 across 3475 theaters.
Here is the trailer.
Here’s the breakdown of the rest of the top 10:
$18M - Iron Lung (Markiplier Studios)
$21.7M worldwide
$3M budget
RT: 50%
Week 1
This is a self-distributed, self-financed sci-fi/horror film based on the 2022 indie video game by David Szymanski. It’s written, directed, stars, and is EP’d by YouTuber Markiplier (38.2M YT followers).
It follows a convict exploring a moon with blood oceans in a sealed submarine.
This is a wild success story, as it not only played in 3015 theaters domestically and a total of 4164 screens worldwide, but hit a US per-screen average of $5970/screen.
That’s the highest per-screen average of any film in the top ten this weekend.
Markiplier was able to leverage his audience to drive an incredibly strong theatrical performance. In fact, Markiplier’s fans actually requested their local theaters play his film.
$7.04M - Melania (Amazon MGM Studios)
$75M budget ($40M acquisition + $35M marketing)
RT: 10% (Critics’ score). 99% (Audience Score).
Week 1
This is the best opening for a doc in a decade.
This is the most expensive doc of all time, not including docs with extensive music licensing.
Compare Melania with some other conservative political docs:
Am I Racist? (2024)
$4.5M opening
$12.3M worldwide
Obama’s America (2012)
$31K opening (1 theater)
$33.5M worldwide
For reference, the highest political doc of all time is Michael Moore’s:
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
$23.9M opening
$222.4M worldwide
#3 highest-grossing doc of all time
What’s different about Melania is that the marketing budget for Fahrenheit 9/11 was less than half at $15M. And that was considered the biggest doc marketing spend ever, as it was The Weinsteins’ Oscar push for the film.
For Melania, many have speculated that Amazon is trying to curry favor with the Trump administration, and this is more of an investment in that relationship.
However, Melania performed well above expectations, especially with Conservatives.
Remember, Amazon MGM bought the film from filmmaker Brett Ratner (dir: Rush Hour) for $40M. There were other bids for the doc, like from Disney, which offered a more reasonable $14M.
These US political films tend to fare poorly internationally, so Melania will not recoup theatrically.
$5.8M - Zootopia 2 (Disney)
$409M domestic total
$1.748bn worldwide
$250M+ production budget
RT: 91%
Week 10
This is the highest-grossing Hollywood animated film of all time, surpassing:
Inside Out 2 (Disney)
$1.699bn worldwide total
However, this is still well behind the highest-grossing animated film ever made:
Ne Zha 2
$2.2bn worldwide total
Zootopia 2 actually increased 9% in its 10th week. That’s incredibly rare.
Disney and Pixar have consistently proved they can put out animated sequels that outperform the first film by wide margins:
Inside Out 2 (2024)
$154.2M opening
vs. $90.4M Inside Out 1
$653M domestic total
vs. $356.5M Inside Out 1
$1.699bn worldwide
vs. $859.1M Inside Out 1
Moana 2 (2024)
$139.8M opening
vs. $56.6M Moana 1
$460.4M domestic total
vs. $248.8M Moana 1
$1.059bn worldwide
vs. $643.3M Moana 1
Frozen 2 (2019)
$130.3M opening
vs. $93.6M Frozen 1
$477.4M domestic total
vs. $400M Frozen 1
$1.454bn worldwide
vs. $1.28bn Frozen 1
Interestingly, all three of the above films have domestic box office totals well above Zootopia 2. But international for the film has been incredibly strong.
$5.5M - Shelter (Black Bear Pictures)
$13M worldwide
$50M budget
RT: 64%
Week 1
This is a low opening for a Jason Statham action film. Especially since the last two non-franchise Statham films have opened at roughly 3x:
A Working Man (2025)
$15.5M opening
$89.2M worldwide
The Beekeeper (2024)
$16.6M opening
$162.6M worldwide
In fact, out of the last 10 Statham films, Shelter’s opening was just about half as much.
However, this should still be seen as a decent win, as Black Bear is a new distributor in the US. This is just their second film. And this well surpassed their first, Christy, which opened at $1.3M.
$5.5M - Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th Century)
$386.1M domestic
$1.41bn worldwide
$400M+ production budget
RT: 66%
Week 7
Domestically, Fire and Ash is trailing behind both of the previous Avatar films’ 7th week totals by a big margin:
Avatar (2009)
$595.7M - 7 week domestic total (vs. 3’s $386.1M)
Avatar 3 is down 35.2%
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
$620.8M - 7 week domestic total (vs. 3’s $386.1M)
Avatar 3 is down 37.8%
Right now, Avatar 3 is far behind the mammoth totals of the first two films:
Avatar (2009)
$749.8M domestic total
$1.994bn international total
$2.74bn worldwide total
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
$684M domestic total
$1.64bn international total
$2.32bn worldwide total
We’ll see how this plays out, but for now, we can say this is a disappointing result and may result in the cancellation of the next Avatar film.
$4.7M - Mercy (Amazon MGM Studios)
$19.4M domestic total
$41M worldwide
$63M budget
RT: 24%
Week 2
This dropped 56% in its second week. This typically wouldn’t be a big drop, but last weekend was a massive storm across the US, so we’d have hoped this would have held better (as many others in the box office did).
But given the international popularity of star Chris Pratt, we’re optimistic this will at minimum recoup its production budget. And that’s usually the goal for these Amazon films, as they’re being fed directly into Prime for streaming.
$3.5M - The Housemaid (Lionsgate)
$120.7M domestic total
$309.8M worldwide
$60M budget
RT: 81%
Week 7
The film dropped a very tiny 11% in its week 7, continuing a sensational run. That’s the kind of drop we like to see, as moviegoers were stymied by last week’s winter storm.
This is now Sweeney’s highest-grossing film of all time:
Anyone But You (2024)
$88M domestic total
$204M worldwide
And it’s actually even approaching the top-grossing film that Sweeney has acted in:
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
$142.5M domestic
$377.4M worldwide
This is great news, as the last three Sydney Sweeney films were box office fails:
Christy (2025)
$1.3M opening
$1.9M domestic total
$2M worldwide
Americana (2025)
$500K opening
$1.5M domestic total (estimated)
Eden (2024)
$1M opening
$1.6M domestic total
$2.8M worldwide
Interestingly, it seems people like Sweeney movies that either tilt horror (like this and Immaculate) or romance (like Anyone But You).
This is star Amanda Seyfried’s top domestic-grossing film since Mamma Mia! Here We Go (2018).
$2.9M - Marty Supreme (A24)
$90.9M domestic total
$117.4M worldwide
$60-70M budget
RT: 95%
Week 7
This is now A24’s highest domestic-grossing film of all time. Well ahead of Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), which brought in $77.2M domestically.
Marty Supreme dropped a tiny 18% in its 7th week.
This is now Oscar-nominated, so it’ll continue to drive attendance up even more.
This is Timothée Chalamet’s 4th highest-grossing film domestically of all time, for a film in which he stars:
Dune: Part 2 (2024)
$282.7M domestic total
Wonka (2023)
$218.6M domestic total
Dune (2021)
$111M domestic total
A Complete Unknown (2024)
$75M domestic total
What’s wild is that Marty Supreme, in which Chalamet plays a real-life eccentric ping pong star, surpassed domestically the film in which he plays music icon Bob Dylan, A Complete Unknown (2024).
$1.6M - 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Sony)
$23.7M domestic total
$53.7M worldwide
$63M budget
RT: 93%
Week 3
This is a massive drop from Sony’s first installment of 28 Years Later, which landed at the following last June:
28 Years Later (Sony Pictures)
$70.4M domestic total
$151.3M worldwide opening
Bone Temple, in its third week, seems to be close to ending its domestic run. Even with a great RT score, there may be some audience fatigue here.
The first two films in the series were powerhouses, earning exceptional amounts against their small budgets:
28 Days Later (2002)
$8M budget
$74.9M worldwide total ($137.1M w/ inflation)
28 Weeks Later (2007)
$15M budget
$65M worldwide total ($104.1M w/ inflation)
We believe 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple will not recoup unless it keeps performing well internationally.
Here are the lowest-grossing films of the week:
$17K - Natchez (Oscilloscope)
Premiere: Tribeca (winner: Best Doc)
$17K /screen average
Week 1
$3.7K - OBEX (Oscilloscope)
Premiere: Sundance
$40.1K domestic total
$411/screen average
Week 4
$176 - Mistress Dispeller (Oscilloscope)
Oscar shortlisted
Premiere: Venice
$92.2K domestic total
$138.6K worldwide
$176 /screen average
Week 15
Janus Films’ The Love That Remains earned $27.2K in its opening weekend. With a massive per-screen average of $13.6K/screen across 2 theaters. The film premiered at Cannes in the Premiere section.
1-2 Special’s A Poet earned $27.8K in its opening weekend. With a massive per-screen average of $13.9K/screen across 2 theaters. The film premiered at Cannes in Un Certain Regard, where it won the Jury Prize.
A24’s The Moment earned $427.9K in its opening weekend. This is A24’s 3rd best per-screen average of $107K/screen across 4 theaters. This is the Charli xcx film that premiered at Sundance.
There are a couple of Oscar-nominated titles doing great business:
$540K - Song Sung Blue (Focus Features)
$38.3M domestic total
$54.6M worldwide
$762/screen average
Week 6
$1.5M - Hamnet (Focus Features)
$20.2M domestic total
$57.6M worldwide total
$1.2K/screen average
Week 10