Black Adam punches his Ticket To Paradise at a killer weekend box office
Dwayne Johnson opens strong, Michael Myers stumbles, and Terrifier 2 is still terrifiering
Aux News Ticket To Paradise
In a relative rarity for the U.S. box office, two big movies opened this past weekend and both made okay money—though one is more okay than the other. The big winner is Black Adam, Dwayne Johnson’s pet superhero project that took years to actually get made and opened to middling reviews (it’s one of those the fans love it things, so it makes sense that it has that cameo that everyone is just freely spoiling), which made a solid $67 million this weekend in its debut. As for number two, Ticket To Paradise, won’t you pack your bags, we’ll leave tonight: The George Clooney/Julia Robert rom-com made a hair over $16 million.
But the big stories don’t stop there, because horror movie Smile—now in its fourth week—managed to squeeze ahead of Halloween Ends in its second week (dropping from first to fourth), with the former making $8.3 million and the other making just $8 million. That seems like a very telling drop for Halloween Ends, whether it’s because of the reception to David Gordon Green’s reboot trilogy or because the movie is available on Peacock (or both), but either way it’s not a good sign for the movie’s continued viability as we wrap up the final few days of the spooky season. Smile, by the way, has made more than $84 million, which is very impressive for a movie that doesn’t have the built-in advantage of putting Michael Myers on the poster.
Finishing the top five is Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile at $4.2 million (only $28 million total after three weeks), and kicking off the bottom five is The Woman King with $1.9 million ($62 million after six weeks). From there, word of mouth and an expanded rollout bump Terrifier 2 up 83 percent from last week, but that still only makes for $1.8 million (but that might keep going up, waning days of spooky season be damned). Then, in the sub-million club, we have Don’t Worry Darling, Amsterdam, and Triangle Of Sadness—though Triangle jumped nearly 80 percent this week and expanded its theatrical rollout from 20 or so to 280, so it’s on an upswing and the others are not.
The full top 10 list is below, and you can see the rest of it at Box Office Mojo.
- Black Adam
- Ticket To Paradise
- Smile
- Halloween Ends
- Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
- The Woman King
- Terrifier 2
- Don’t Worry Darling
- Amsterdam
- Triangle Of Sadness
45 Comments
Smile, Lyle, Lyle Crocodile! Black Adam and The Woman King buy a Ticket to Paradise (aka Amsterdam) to escape the Triangle of Sadness as Halloween Ends but Don’t Worry Darling about Terrifier 2.
Imagining this being read in a really nasal Monty Python TV presenter voice
This guy gets it ^
Top Gun!
In a ballpark figure if it’s a 200 million dollar movie with a 200 million dollar marketing budget (holy shit have they ever been advertising it), it’ll need something like 600 million dollars to break even. That seems unlikely unless word of mouth is amazing.
I’m sure they need to make a lot more, but there’s no way they need 400 million dollars over the cost of making the thing.
The rule of thumb is 3x the production budget for the studio to break even, because not only did they outlay the production budget (X dollars), marketing for tentpoles is usually about the same as the production cost. You might think, well, then they only need to make 2x to cover it… but the studio doesn’t get all of the box office revenue: the theaters get to keep some of it, obviously. So if the studio only gets, say, 2/3 of the box office revenue, then it needs a gross of $600 million to cover production/marketing costs of $400 million.
Well, they do, to cover the loss on their other projects who only catered to a small audience.
It would probably have to make more than $600 million to break even since the theater/studio split goes more in favor of the theater the longer a film is in theaters. Plus studios tend to get less of the split from international markets. And contracts tend to have a hedge against a movie flopping, so if a movie is not able to make certain benchmarks, more of the split will go to the theater.
Ah but the reason the split goes in favor of the theaters is because the first two weekends are usually split HUGE the other way- it’s one of the reasons theaters make all their money on concessions, opening weekend you’re getting basically nothing.
Which is why the OK opening weekend for Black Adam could be a problem. Even if it has great word of mouth and is able to keep the week to week drops to a minimum, it would have to be able to sustain that for a long time since the longer it’s in theaters, the smaller percentage of the box office the studio gets.
I don’t think it ever dips below 50% though? Which honestly is what it should be throughout, letting the studios take 90 or even 100% of the first weekend encourages them to not really care about word of mouth or staying power.
“Which is why the OK opening weekend for Black Adam could be a problem.”
Don’t forget that it made 73M internationally and its worldwide total is 170M. It doesn’t *just* have to make money in North America, it’s also going to make about half its hall internationally.
Just curious, what is your source for the economical income breakdown of a movie theater vs a movie production company?
https://stephenfollows.com/how-a-cinemas-box-office-income-is-distributed/
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/093015/how-exactly-do-movies-make-money.asp
Don’t forget international markets.
This is domestic gross. Black Adam did $70M internationally, and is at $140M total. This is a strong opening and the movie is a success.
Speaking of ballpark: Let’s go Phillies!
Black Adam would have made a lot more money if they just had him say his catchphrase, “Up and Adam.”
Up and ‘at ‘em, Adam Adamant?
“up and AT THEM”
Black Adam is not bad; it’s just hard to care about what’s going on. It’s thankfully neither tonally dour nor visually dark, but the approach still feels wrong.
https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2022/10/22/should-you-bet-on-black-adam/
nooooobody caaaaaares about your website
That’s what my cat tells me.
I kind of like it.
Nice try.
Buffalo shot!
I’m all about positive thinking and positive reporting but had this been any other 200 million dollar movie that only made 67 million in the US, 73 million International which was projected to make at least 200 million worldwide, Folks would be reporting that it’s a flop. The reality is that the Rock’s biggest market is China so they really need a China release date in order to at least break even and there currently isn’t a release date, Black Adam only has 2 weeks to turn a profit. Once November 10th Comes Black Adam will be removed from all premium screens and replaced by Black panther 2. Superhero movies typically drop between 60-67% the 2nd week. Even if black Adam lucks out and get a 50% hold it will probably land only around 217 million mark. These are not good numbers for a 200 million dollar tent pole. If black panther overperforms and if Black Adam doesn’t get a China release his movie is DOA and will not get a sequel. This is the real reality that no one seems to want to talk about.
I’m sure the general consensus will eventually arrive at this being a flop, but it’s striking just how different the tone is from Thor: Love and Thunder. That movie made $69 million just on its first day, and more than double that its opening weekend, and people were stampeding to be the first to declare the movie DOA, messaging that continued for weeks. It’s amazing how we’re still treating DC movies like Republican senatorial candidates at debates: “Well they didn’t fall over and piss themselves, what a great performance!”I’m pretty ambivalent on Black Adam and The Rock, so while I wouldn’t necessarily mind a sequel here, I’m much more excited about the idea of WB hemorrhaging money leading the slim but slowly increasingly possibility of someone shoving Zaslav in a sack and throwing him into open water.
“Okay, so he did piss himself, a little. But it’s only a small stain! You can barely notice it! Great job!”
it’s all relative right? the mcu has a lot more comps. regardless of how successful 4 was (and it was!) it simply didn’t make as much money as thor 3* and probably cost a lot more.*obviously i understand it didn’t open in china, that’s what the asterisk is for.
excluding the batman, black adam’s opening is higher than the latest dc releases (birds of prey only opening to 33 million and that was before the pandemic! and did better than stuff like shazam. all this to say i think it’s not unfair to judge the well-oiled machine’s 4th outing harsher than the weirdly oiled machine’s first-outing.
[Black Adam] made a solid $67 million this weekend in its debut.
Er…that’s not wonderful for a movie that cost $200 million to make, right?
I’ve heard the rule of thumb is you want to recoup 50% of productions costs on opening weekend to be confident the movie will turn a profit in the long run. They’re about 1/3 short of that.
Well, this is domestic box office, only. It made another 73 Million interationally.
Just want to encourage everyone to see Triangle of Sadness. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it but it was a fun watch and totally worth seeing in theaters.
Really? It doesn’t sound fun.
Can’t imagine Peacock hurt much. It’s only on Peacock premium, which has only 15 million subscribers. I doubt many people signed up just for Halloween Ends. And while reviews are bad, word of mouth seems even worse. Glad that Smile, which is far better, is outpacing it.
For what it’s worth, I watched it last night and I thought it was pretty good. Unexpected. Objectively way better than the second movie. I was entertained, had some laughs, and there were some decent kills.
Peacock sucks the only reason I would get it is for figure skating and their coverage of it is crap. Worst of the streaming apps that I have tried.
140M worldwide is right at the bottom of superhero film openings…so this can’t be good news for anyone involved, especially with Panther 2 so close.
Oh great now Dwayne Johnson will never shut the fuck up about this dumb character
Wow incredible disdain for something that fans like in that opening paragraph. Impressive!
a hair over $16 million: $16,000,000.01?
Terrifier 2 was a fun theater experience.
“That seems like a very telling drop for Halloween Ends, whether it’s because of the reception to David Gordon Green’s reboot trilogy or because the movie is available on Peacock (or both)“None of that is telling.
What *has* been telling is the way Smile has managed to hang around. THAT is the outlier, not the fact that a poorly-reviewed movie that is simultaneously available on a free streaming service had a large second-weekend drop.
People do not trust when they say this is the last Halloween movie because they have said that countless times before.