Box Office Update: Barbenheimer still solid; Turtles comes in strong while Meg 2 does not

Barbie and Oppenheimer continue their domination of the marketplace as they are poised to take in $51 million and $27 million respectively (per Deadline). For Barbie that third week number puts it above the first week of Brad Pitt’s Bullet Train which opened to $30 million on this weekend last year. By end of day Sunday, Barbie should be hovering around the $460 million mark at the domestic box office while worldwide numbers will possibly be over that billion dollar mark. That is quite impressive for any movie, let alone one based on an over 60 year old brand.

Oppenheimer is still dominating its IMAX screens and should see a weekend take at $27 million which would put the tale of the formation of the atomic bomb at around $230 million domestic and around $530 million worldwide. Again, quite impressive for any movie, let alone a 3-hour, R rated biopic. I just really hope this movie has the momentum into awards season. This should be the film that brings everyone involved to Oscar glory. Nolan deserves Best Director, Cillian deserves Best Actor, Emily Blunt deserves to be in the running for Actress and Robert Downey Jr deserves to completely sweep every award given out as his performance as Lewis Strauss is one of the finest performances I have ever seen. Granted, I haven’t seen every movie that is to come this year, but I just can’t imagine anything coming out that will usurp Oppenheimer as the best movie of the year.

It is still early in the day and families could still push Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem into second place as that film is currently tracking (as of this writing) to also hit the $27 million mark for the weekend with its five day take (the film was released on Wednesday) hitting around $42 million, which puts it above where projections had it earlier in the week. The movie, hailing from producers Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg who previously helmed one of the funniest films ever made with Sausage Party (the sequel series Sausage Party: Foodtopia is set to be released in the near future), is actually a pretty good movie with some solid voice performances (especially from the always reliable Paul Rudd), and the movie teases a sequel which fans will be highly anticipating! You can check out Tyler Nichols’ 8/10 review here.

Fourth place will belong to Jason Statham and his killer shark sequel Meg 2: The Trench with what is looking like a $25 million weekend, about $20 million shy of what the original opened with back in 2018. Here is where I must be honest and say that this movie was an absolute disappointment for me. I loved the first movie because it knew what it was and had fun with it. This movie had a plot development in the middle of the movie that made me roll my eyes so hard they almost came out of my head. From that point on, I just couldn’t wait for the movie to end. And even in the climax of the film, where we should be having some Piranha 3D level fun, the movie just played like a Jurassic Park meets Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest rip-off, if you’ve seen the movie, you know exactly what I’m talking about! I think this one will crater at the domestic box office, we will see how international audiences take to it. You can check out Chris Bumbray’s 5/10 review here.

Rounding out the top five is the second weekend of Disney’s Haunted Mansion which looks to drop around 60% and land with under $10 million for the weekend. Surely not what the mouse house had in mind when rebooting the franchise for a new generation. However, with Disney+ this one may still find life around Halloween time.

Have you made it to theaters yet this weekend or is it still on your list of things to do? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check back with us tomorrow as we give a full down on this weekends box office results.