(UTV | UNITED STATES) – Marvel’s “Thor: Love and Thunder” remained the top movie at the domestic box office, but the results are enough to drawn concern.
After making a very strong debut last weekend, the $250 million budgeted film raked in $46 million this weekend for a $232 million ten day domestic total.
It continues on from a similar 67% drop for May’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and, as much if not more so than that film, the movie has met a very middling reception from critics and audiences.
Both “Black Widow” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” also had steep 67% drops, though there were extenuating circumstances in those cases (Disney+ availability, Christmas Day weekend respectively). The lowest second weekend drop of the ‘Phase 4’ films was “Shang-Chi” with a 52% fall.
As ‘Love and Thunder’ has no real four-quadrant challenges until October, it could keep chugging along for a while. It has taken in a total of $264.6 million overseas so far for a worldwide total of $497 million at ten days (NOT $712 million worldwide as an erroneous Box-Office Mojo listing has suggested).
Should its trajectory track along the lines of the ‘Strange’ sequel in terms of % drop-off, ‘Love and Thunder’ should finish out its theatrical run at around the $700 million mark worldwide.
To put that in perspective, it’s considerably less than the $854 million worldwide “Thor: Ragnarok” made. However, once you subtract the Chinese and Russian grosses from Ragnarok’s total it comes in around $712 million which is more comparative (‘Love and Thunder’ didn’t open in those markets).
Even with its soft reaction, the “Doctor Strange” sequel still out grossed its predecessor by 40% ($954M vs. $677M) whereas the new “Thor,” coming off the universally acclaimed ‘Ragnarok’, looks like it will end up doing notably less than its predecessor whilst costing around $70 million more to produce.
The new “Thor” held off three newcomers this week including the novel adaptation “Where the Crawdads Sing” which debuted in third with a better-than-expected $17 million despite terrible critical reviews. “Paws of Fury” came in under expectations with $10 million for sixth place, while “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” took $1.9 million in limited release.
“Minions: The Rise of Gru” held on to second place at the box-office, pulling in $262 million domestically to date after three weeks and a further $270 million internationally.
In its eighth weekend of release, “Top Gun: Maverick” is still in fourth place scoring a further $12 million and a drop of just 23% and is on track to rank among the top ten highest-grossing films in domestic box office history this coming weekend. “Elvis” came in fifth with $7.6 million and a $185.6 million worldwide gross to date.