For the third weekend in a row, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings leads the box-office. The Marvel Studios hit from Disney adds another $21.7M to its impressive run, including the all-time Labor Day weekend record, the third highest opening & second weekend in September ever, and the fastest climb to $100M during this pandemic. The movie dropped just -37% in its third weekend. And yes, Shang-Chi crossed $150M after just 12 days, beating Black Widow’s pandemic-record by four days. With this weekend in the books, Shang-Chi now stands at $176.9M total and will likely surpass Black Widow’s $183M to become the highest grossing film of the year.

Landing in third place was the new release from Warner Bros.’ Cry Macho, which sees 91-year old Clint Eastwood back on the big screen (in addition to streaming on HBO Max). While we have seen relative successes come from WB’s day-and-date HBO Max films, they have been largely franchise installments (Godzilla vs Kong, The Conjuring 3, Space Jam). The largest non-franchise debut was In the Heights with $11.5M. Cry Macho walked away with $4.5M this weekend. At 53% Rotten Tomatoes, it may not be Eastwood’s best film but it does mark the 25th movie where he both directed and starred in – the first being Play Misty for Me in 1971.

Second place went to Free Guy with $5.2M, by the way. The Ryan Reynolds action-comedy is still the movie to see, dropping just -7% in its sixth weekend. This brings its total to $108.6M.

Meanwhile, Open Road Films launched Copshop – a crime thriller starring Gerald Butler, Frank Grillo, and Alexis Louder – into theaters. Another low-profile release, the film earned an opening of $2.3M. This is just slightly under the studio’s other pandemic-releases, Honest Thief and The Marksman, which respectively opened to $4.1M and $3.1M.

Altogether, this weekend’s total box-office is estimated at $47.6M. 

So what’s next? We are only two weekends away from the October blockbuster drumroll that begins with Venom: There Be Carnage (10/01), and includes The Addams Family 2 (10/01), No Time to Die (10/08), Halloween Kills (10/15), The Last Duel (10/15), Dune (10/22), Ron’s Gone Wrong (10/22), and Last Night in Soho(10/29). Should forecasts hold, we could be in store for an October box-office that sets a new all-time record for the month, while we are still in a pandemic.

Finally going on sale last Friday – after being delayed for 18 months – No Time to Die will be shown in both 3D and RealD, the first film in the franchise’s 59-year history to release on those premium formats. MGM Studios is going all-in for Daniel Craig’s last mission as the MI6 agent with a license to kill. Exclusive to theaters, No Time to Die has a good chance to dethrone Black Widow’s three-day opening record of $80.4M. 

Until then, we’ll get Dear Evan Hansen in theaters this Friday 9/24.