“Bullet Train,” a John Wick-ian romp with Brad Pitt in the aisle seat, hit theaters with a $30.1 million opening weekend. That’s enough to top the domestic box office, but it’s a half-assed result given “Bullet Train’s” $90 million price tag and Pitt’s star power. The Sony Pictures release will need to maintain momentum in the coming weeks as it tries to break even or turn a profit.
“A big movie like this with high expectations should have had a stronger debut,” says Jeff Bock, senior media analyst for Exhibitor Relations. “That said, there isn’t much competition in August, so ‘Bullet Train’ should have a good window to make its mark in the coming weeks.”
“Bullet Train” tries to prove that an action movie that isn’t based on a well-known property can defy the odds and resonate with audiences. But part of the film’s problem is that critics weren’t on board. “Bullet Train” earned a mediocre 54% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with many critics criticizing the film for being overly derivative. Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge was mixed on “Bullet Train,” writing that “neither the characters nor the film they inhabit are particularly deep.”
“Bullet Train” was directed by David Leitch, who once served as a double for Pitt before moving on to oversee the likes of “Atomic Blonde” and “Deadpool 2.” It centers on a hapless hitman whose mission to grab a suitcase full of cash on a high-speed train in Japan turns into double-crosses and brutal fights with an army of competing assassins, thieves and social misfits .
Universal and Amblin’s “Easter Sunday,” the weekend’s other major release, stumbled in its opening frame, earning a meager $5.3 million for eighth place on the domestic charts. “Easter Sunday” stars stand-up comedian Jo Koy as an actor who attends his dysfunctional Filipino-American family’s Easter Sunday celebration.
The good news for Universal and Amblin is that “Easter Sunday” was a modest bet, coming in at $17 million. Comedies, once a reliable draw, have struggled at the box office in recent years. In fact, “Easter Sunday” is the only major studio comedy opening in theaters this summer, a sign of just how far the genre has fallen in popularity.
“DC League of Super-Pets,” an animated offering from Warner Bros., took second place with $11.2 million. After two weeks, “Super-Pets” has a domestic gross of $45.1 million, a disappointing result given its $90 million production budget. Under its new corporate owner, Warner Bros. Discovery is looking to shake up its cinematic universe of DC Comics characters, a shift in direction that led to the company’s controversial decision this week to ax “Batgirl” after the film was completed. Instead of premiering on HBO Max as originally planned or being adapted for a theatrical series, the film will now become a tax break.
Universal’s “No” was third with $8.5 million. That brings Jordan Peele’s twisted UFO thriller to $97.9 million at the domestic box office, an impressive result for a film that wasn’t derived from some pre-existing piece of IP.
Disney and Marvel’s “Thor: Love and Thunder” and Universal and Illumination’s “Minions: Rise of Gru” rounded out the top five, earning $7.6 million and $7.1 million, respectively. That brings the MCU adventure’s US total to $316.1 million, while the “Despicable Me” spin-off has now earned $334.6 million domestically.
In limited release, “Bodies Bodies Bodies” grossed $226,526 on 6 screens in New York and Los Angeles for a per-screen average of $37,754. The A24 horror film follows a group of wealthy twenty-somethings on a whirlwind party at a remote family mansion that becomes the site of a lot of bloodshed. The cast includes former “SNL” star Pete Davidson, “The Hate U Give” star Amandla Stenberg and “Borat 2” star Maria Bakalova.
As for the milestone, Paramount’s “Top Gun: Maverick” has now supplanted “Titanic” as the seventh-biggest film at the domestic box office, earning $662 million in ticket sales. The sequel, now in its 11th week of release, added $7 million to its total. The film is the highest-grossing opening of Tom Cruise’s career and, thanks to a lucrative profit-sharing deal, will leave him more than $100 million richer.
The domestic box office has experienced an impressive upswing in recent months; is a resurgence fueled by hits like “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Jurassic World Dominion.” The bad news for theaters is that “Bullet Train” is the last big-budget studio film this summer, and it’s about to be a veritable desert for populist fare. Studio executives and theater owners privately say there won’t be another big hit until “Black Adam” opens on Oct. 21 or “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” opens on the 11 of November That’s a long time to wait, especially for an exhibition industry still trying to shake off the lingering impact of COVID closures and declining attendance.
“We have to manage expectations,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at ComScore. “The next three months will not be like the previous three months. It will be a long time before we have another blockbuster.”