In today’s Box Office Breakdown, we analyze the top ten box office performers, including two new releases, Universal’s Dog Man and Warner Bros.’s Companion.
We also break out the three lowest-earning films at this week’s box office. We provide context for each, such as Searchlight’s A Real Pain.
Plus, an Oscar-nominated film with no distributor opens this weekend.
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What follows is a full analysis of the box office this weekend. We go into great detail about which movies performed well and which didn’t and what that means for future releases.
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Universal’s Dog Man took #1 at the box office with $36 M domestic. It made $4.59 M internationally for a total of $40.59 M worldwide.
This is a strong domestic performance for an original DreamWorks animation (it is based on a book series), topping the company’s last three non-sequel originals:
The Wild Robot (2024)
$35.8 M opening
$143.9 M domestic total
$325 M worldwide
The Bad Guys (2022)
$24 M opening
$97.5 M domestic total
$250.4 M worldwide
Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken (2023)
$5.5 M opening
$15.8 M domestic
$45.7 M worldwide
Dog Man had the highest per-screen average this weekend, with $9.2K/theater across a massive 3885 screens.
The film was made for $40 M and should have no problem recouping as it expands internationally.
Here is the trailer.
Here’s the breakdown of the rest of the top 10:
$9.5 M - Companion (Warner Bros.)
$15 M worldwide
$10 M budget + $10 M US TV spend
RT: 94%
Week 1
It opened slightly lower than the producer’s last film:
Barbarian (2022)
$10.5 M opening
$40.8 M domestic
$45.4 M worldwide
Nevertheless, Companion had a great opening for an original horror film, cementing star Sophie Thatcher (Heretic) as a box office draw. A24’s wildly popular Heretic opened slightly higher at $10.8 M, bolstered by Hugh Grant playing against type in a villainous role.
Companion is the first widely released film in which Jack Quaid (The Boys) has starred (2019’s Plus One was released on Hulu, and he co-starred in 2022’s Scream). It bodes well, as Quaid has the equally gruesome Novocaine due out in mid-March.
$6.1 M - Mufasa: The Lion King (Disney)
$229.5 M domestic total
$653 M worldwide
$200 M budget
RT: 56%
Week 7
Mufasa is holding very well domestically, only dropping 29% from last weekend. And only losing 240 screens (8% of the 3180 total).
The film is still well behind the previous incarnation:
The Lion King (2019)
$543.6 M domestic total
$1.657 bn worldwide
And trailing the beloved original:
The Lion King (1994)
$312.9 M domestic total
$771 M worldwide
Despite the competition of Dog Man, the popularity of the Lion King IP has held well in theaters.
$6 M - One of Them Days (Sony)
$34.5 M domestic total
$14 M budget
RT: 95%
Week 3
This is an outstanding performance for performance for the Keke Palmer and SZA starring film. The film, targeted at Black audiences, had the lowest drop from last weekend of any film in the top 20, only losing 25%.
This is due to strong reviews and the star power of singer SZA (Four Grammys, 22 M IG followers) + Keke Palmer (co-star: Nope, Hustlers), and an overall lack of films in this genre.
This is Palmer’s first film to get top billing to get a wide theatrical release.
Marco serves as the production company, and they have really cornered the market with prestige, high-quality, relatively lower-budget films targeted toward Black audiences:
Netflix’s They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
Cast: John Boyega, Jamie Foxx, Kiefer Sutherland
95% RT
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons
96% RT
$7.5 M worldwide
Premiere: Sundance
6 Oscar Nominations
Just Mercy (2019)
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson
$50.9 M worldwide
85% RT
Premiere: TIFF
These films tend to do more poorly overseas. So we’ll see if One of Them Days can make more than Macro’s top-performing film Fences (2016), the Denzel Washington starring film that earned $64.4 M worldwide.
$5.6 M - Flight Risk (Lionsgate)
For the rest of the breakdown of the top ten, you can sign up here: https://theindustry.co/subscribe