There is something to be said about the relationship between pumping money into a product versus the quality of the outcome. On paper, a film about men pranking each other – backed by a modest budget of $10M – should probably not outgross an “original” movie that has $146M in resources. But that is exactly what happened this weekend – why? Because sometimes audiences would rather sign up for a laugh and not a long-winded, space-disaster movie.
Building upon the success of the now 22 year-old MTV series, Jackass Forever is already profitable with an opening weekend of $23.5M. Since 2002’s Jackass: The Movie, the franchise has made solid-debuts at the box-office. A strong fanbase, good word-of-mouth, and the general lack of fresh content in the weeks to come will all help Jackass Forever have a steady run.
Finishing in second place was Lionsgate’s expensive flick, Moonfall. From the director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, the movie scored just $10M over the weekend – despite sporting a cast like Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, and Donald Sutherland. Not to mention the special effects budget that must have gone into a movie about the moon crashing into Earth. In the current climate, audiences will likely not warm up to a run-of-the-mill disaster movie.
For a $59.2M weekend with two new releases, holdovers were once again impressive. Spider-Man: No Way Home dropped just -12.8% from last weekend, hauling in another $9.6M for its eighth weekend in theaters. Climbing to a new domestic box-office total of $749M, the Marvel film is just $11M short from overtaking 2009’s Avatar as the third-highest grossing film (domestically) of all time. Behind Spidey were Scream with another $4.7M (a -34.5% drop) and Sing 2 with $4.2M (a -10.6% drop).
Coming up next, theaters will run Death on the Nile, Marry Me (also streaming on Peacock) and Blacklight.