Box office: ‘Civil War’ sets multiple new records for A24, including its first #1 weekend

Edward Douglas
·5 min read
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April has been a slower month compared to March, but if nothing else, this weekend saw a popular indie studio break a few personal records with what might have been a controversial release. Read on for the weekend box office report.

A24 released Alex Garland‘s fourth feature as a director, “Civil War,” starring Oscar nominee Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Maura, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Nick Offerman, and Jesse Plemons, into 3,838 theaters on Friday – the studio’s widest release ever. It came into the weekend with a reported production budget of $50 million – another record for the studio – and mostly decent reviews with 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, following a premiere at the SXSW Film and TV Festival.

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It was able to make $2.9 million in Thursday and earlier previews, which were compiled into the movie’s $10.8 million opening day, and it then ended with an estimated $25.7 million to take first place on opening weekend. $4.2 million of that amount came from IMAX screens across the country.

Mind you, A24 has been releasing movies for ten years, and “Civil War” is not only their very first weekend #1 ever, but also the first movie to open or even MAKE $20 million or more in the same weekend. In fact, A24’s biggest weekend to date was when Ari Aster‘s “Hereditary” opened with $13.6 million in 2018, and that’s because many of their movies get platform releases rather than opening wide. Still, it’s quite an achievement for the studio.

“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” dropped to second place with $15.5 million, down 50% in its third weekend, as it brought its domestic total to $157.9 million

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Third place was a pretty close race between “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” and “Kung Fu Panda 4,” but the former came out on top, staying in third place with an estimated $5.8 million, down 36% with a running North American total of $97 million through Sunday. It made another $10.8 million overseas this weekend to bring its global total to $160 million.

That was followed in fourth place by “Kung Fu Panda” with $5.5 million (down just 29%), as it continued to take advantage of being one of the few PG family films in theaters. It has grossed $173.7 million domestically and another $279 million overseas – $25.9 million just this weekend in 81 territories including a $6.1 million opening in South Korea – for a global total of $452.6 million. Incidentally, DreamWorks Animation also re-released 2004’s “Shrek 2” into 1,512 theaters where it snuck into the top 10 with $1.4 million.

Another returning movie held onto the top five, as Denis Villeneuve‘s “Dune: Part Two” made another $4.3 million (down 42%) to bring its domestic total to $272.1 million.

After making $13.7 million its opening week, Dev Patel‘s directorial debut, the action-thriller “Monkey Man,” dropped to sixth place while adding another $4.1 million, down 59% from last weekend with $17.8 million grossed so far.

20th Century’s horror prequel, “The First Omen,” also dropped out of the top five to seventh place with $3.8 million, down 55%, to bring its total to $14.6 million.

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After that, there were a bunch of more moderate releases, and not all of them reported box office early enough to include in this report, although none of them came close to the top five either. These included the golf drama, “The Long Game,” starring Dennis Quaid, which opened in 1,020 theaters; Well Go USA’s giant spider thriller, “Sting,” in 975 theaters; RLJEfilms apocalyptic thriller “Arcadian,” starring Nicolas Cage, in roughly 1,100 theaters; and the remake of  “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.” Quaid’s movie will probably end up doing the best of the bunch with $1.4 million including previews, but we’ll update these numbers if something else pulls ahead.

Bleecker Street opened Nathan and David Zellner‘s “Sasquatch Sunset” in 9 theaters on Friday, with star Jesse Eisenberg doing Q n As in New York. It ended up with $93k for the weekend, roughly $10k per theater, with plans to expand into 800+ theaters this coming Friday.

Most players predicted correctly that “Civil War” would win the weekend in Gold Derby’s box office prediction game, with roughly a third predicting it would open with more than $25 million. Only 13 players had “Kung Fu Panda 4” jumping back into fourth place, so we’ll have to see if that holds, or if it up beating “Ghostbusters” to take third place.

Only four players got perfect scores in the April 5 game last week, with “Trevstucker” having the highest point score with well-placed Super Bets, including one on “Kung Fu Panda” taking fifth place.

On Friday, there are four more wide releases, including the horror film, “Abigail,” so check back on Wednesday for Gold Derby’s weekend preview.

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