Despite posting their strongest opening in years, Marvel’s Fantastic Four: First Steps isn’t proving to have the staying power the studio might have hoped for. In our box office predictions, we figured the movie would earn about $45 million this weekend, representing a drop in the high-fifties to low-sixties percentage range. Instead, the film will only (if that) make $40 million, meaning it has fallen 66%, which isn’t good. James Gunn’s Superman had a much better second weekend. These are stats in the Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania / Captain America: Brave New World territory. It seems MCU fans turned out for the opening but aren’t going back for seconds. It’s also worth noting that the movie didn’t have much in the way of competition this weekend, so it should have done better.
The race for second place isn’t turning out to be much of a race at all, with The Bad Guys 2 looking at about $22 million—roughly what the first movie made in its opening weekend. The failure of animated films like Elio and Smurfs likely opened the door for this one to play well with families—assuming they don’t all flock to Freakier Friday next week.
As for The Naked Gun—it’s doing okay. It’s not the blockbuster we hoped for, but it’s looking at an opening in the $16 million range, which is decent for a comedy. It also scored an A-minus CinemaScore, meaning audiences are enjoying it, so maybe it will become a word-of-mouth hit?
Neon’s Together is also doing pretty well, tracking for a $10.5 million weekend. That should be enough for sixth place, with Superman and Jurassic World: Rebirth looking like they’ll easily beat it on a daily basis.
We’ll be back tomorrow with a full box office wrap-up. What are you seeing this weekend? Let us know in the comments!
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