2025 has seen a few low weekends this year at the box office, from the third weekend of Captain America: Brave New World to the days of Mickey 17 and Novocaine. We haven’t seen a sub $40-million top 10 since the weekend of Feb. 9, 2024. This weekend came close, but if the estimates hold, we’ll be in the realm of $41-43 million amongst the leading grossers, making it the lowest grossing weekend of the year. This marks just the 10th time the 10 leaders have grossed less than $45 million together since 2022. That happens when your biggest release over Halloween weekend is a 40 year-old film (and a bona fide classic, no shade). That opened the door for a film to post a big upset this week, just not the horror film we were expecting.
KING of the Crop: Regretting You Tops Worst Weekend of 2025
As of today, estimates actually have Josh Boone’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s Regretting You atop the box office this weekend with $8.1 million. The film fell 40% and leapt from second last week to become the leader. It’s the first time a film finished outside the top spot in their inaugural weekend and came back for seconds in first place since The Garfield Movie leapfrogged Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga post-Memorial Day weekend in 2024. That brings Regretting You’s 10-day total to $27.5 million. As referenced last week, the Harrison Ford/Kristin Scott-Thomas our-spouses-died-so-let’s-hookup film, Random Hearts, fell to $5.6 million in its second weekend back in 1999 and had made $22.5 million in its first 10 days. That path has Regretting You on track for $35-40 million, which will cover about half of its $30 million budget.
Tales of the top 10: Black Phone 2 Falls Just Below No. 1, Chainsaw Man Drops to Third
Although the debate will ultimately be settled when actuals are revealed on Monday, Black Phone 2 got the Friday Halloween bump and it indeed retained the No. 2 slot after conceding last week to the Chainsaw Man. Scott Derrickson’s sequel continues to be a solid success for Universal and Blumhouse, grossing $8 million over the weekend (with $2.4 million of that estimated on Friday alone) and coming in just a hair below Regretting You. That brings the film’s 17-day total to $61.4 million. The original was at $62.4 million after a $7.7 million third weekend. The post-spooky-holiday addition of Predator next weekend could see a bigger drop for its fourth go, but a domestic finish between $75-80 million and globally over $125 million (it is currently at $104.7 million) is a solid number for the $30 million production. Maybe The Grabber will indeed return for another go.
Last week’s No. 1, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, fell to third place with $6 million. The 67% drop puts the film at $30.7 million domestic, ahead of Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie, which banked $27.7 million in its first 10 days. That anime release fell 74.5% down to $4.58 million in its second weekend, so Chainsaw Man is looking to best its $34.5 million domestic gross. Globally the film is over $139 million on a reported $4.1 million budget.
Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia with Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons opened in just 17 theaters last weekend and had the third-best multi-venue per-theater average of the year ($41,568) behind only The Phoenician Scheme ($93,417) and Friendship ($75,317). Lanthimos had the second best PTA of the year in 2014 with Kinds of Kindness ($75,458), but it never really branched out and grossed just $5 million. This weekend Bugonia expanded into 2,043 theaters and it made $4.8 million. It is the best single weekend ever for the director. The fastest that one of his films made it into over 1,000 theaters was Poor Things, but not until its seventh week. Bugonia’s estimated $2,349 per-theater average is lower than Kinds of Kindness’ drop to $3,218 over 490 venues in its second week expansion. It is also lower than Focus’ expansion of Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, now the second-most aggressive limited expansion of 2025 from six to 1,678 theaters, and it made $6.27 million for a PTA of $3,738.
If any bias shows in covering the No. 5 film of the week, it is certainly on purpose. Full disclosure that Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future happens to be this writer’s favorite movie of all time, and I am surely not alone in that sentiment. The film came out 40 years ago in the summer of 1985, when it was No. 1 at the box office for 11 of its first 12 weeks and became the biggest film of the year and the sixth-highest grossing film of the 1980s behind only E.T., Return of the Jedi, Batman, Beverly Hills Cop, and Ghostbusters.
For its 40th anniversary, Universal put the film back in 2,290 theaters, right in between the crucial dates of Oct. 21 and Nov. 5 within the movie. (It was in never more than 1,550 theaters in ’85 and grossed $212.3 million, or roughly the equivalent of $640 million today). Over the weekend the re-release grossed $4.7 million, the third-best revival opening of the year after the 20th anniversary of Revenge of the Sith ($25.4 million) and the 50th for Jaws ($8.2 million) and just ahead of Princess Mononoke’s 4K restoration ($3.87 million).
Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere has proven to be a theatrical bust that has had everyone speculating as to why. Was it because Jeremy Allen White is not a proven movie star? That didn’t seem to be the case for Taron Egerton (Rocketman), Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody), or Austin Butler (Elvis). Maybe if the film was about the creation of the Born in the USA album instead of the more morose Nebraska, it would have had some audiences discover that it wasn’t exactly the patriotic anthem many have mistaken it to be. (Those that missed that explanation in Ben Affleck’s Air, at least.) But that’s not the story Cooper set out to tell (based on the book channeling this period in Springsteen’s life), and people may be waiting to discover it later. In its second weekend, it made $3.8 million to bring its total to only $16.2 million, putting it on the low end of the music biopic charts. Globally it is at $30.6 million.
When Briarcliff Entertainment was launched in 2018 they had their two best openings right off the bat with their debut of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9 ($2.78 million) and Blacklight with Liam Neeson ($3.50 million). After the release of the animated Stitch Head this week, well, they are still their two best openings. Stitch Head did actually open on Wednesday and made $395,756 in its first two days. Then over the weekend, it become Briarcliff’s third-best start with $2.1 million. The film is a $30 million independent production picked up by the company.
Rounding out the top 10, Disney may not be going bankrupt, but they do have the two biggest theatrical bombs of the year in Snow White and Tron: Ares, the latter of which made $2.8 million in its fourth weekend. That brings its domestic total to just $67.8 million and a global gross of only $133.9 million. Potentially closing out just a three-week run in the top 10 is Aziz Ansari’s Good Fortune with Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves. It grossed $1.4 million for a total of just $14.6 million, outside of the top ten R-rated comedies released post-pandemic. And if that sounds like an unattainable goal, know that 10th on that list is The Holdovers with $20 million.
Finally, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another got a boost this week, not so much from audiences who spent $1.1 million this weekend to bring its domestic total to $67.7 million, but from Deadline, who reported that the film is approaching profitability. Which we would all love to believe. It’s already thrilling that a Paul Thomas Anderson film is at nearly $200 million globally, but the math is not in its favor unless someone is lying.
We have known since the film was in production that its budget was into nine-digit territory. The low end that has been reported was a cost of $130 million, a number that has stretched in some speculation to $175 million. Anyone saying that $200 million across the globe is a break-even point is, frankly, deluding themselves. Unless, of course, all the numbers are wrong. If the movie cost an even $100 million and not a single dollar was spent afterwards on advertising or distribution, then yes, the current $190 million that Battle has made would be on the path to breaking even. But that requires the initial low-end budget costs to be inflated and, even more unrealistically, the studio spent not a dime on P&A, or everyone waived them because they knew PTA had a masterpiece in the can.
The bottom line is that so many of us either want One Battle After Another to be a success or simply don’t want to think about who may have lost whatever on a film that is going to be a major awards player and stand the test of time. Think of how many “bombs” are considered all-time classics and the best ambassadors of the artform. But misinformation benefits nobody. Just two weeks ago, there were reports from the trades that One Battle After Another was set to lose $100 million in theaters. Then all of a sudden, the same outfit that ran interference for Warner Bros. when Black Adam bombed is doing it again just at a time when the studio is courting suitors for a merger. Numbers only lie if someone lies about them. That goes for box office and everywhere.
Beyond the top ten: S.S. Rajamouli’s Baahubali: The Epic Hits Theaters
Derek Cianfrance’s Roofman just missed the top 10 with $1 million this weekend; its domestic total is $21.3 million. Baahubali: The Epic, the new four-hour cut that combines director S. S. Rajamouli’s two films Baahubali: The Beginning (2015) and Baahubali: The Conclusion (2017), opened to $1.1 million in 448 theaters. His 2022 film RRR opened to $9.5 million in 1,200 theaters and found a devoted following afterwards. Shelby Oaks fell quickly out of favor with horror fans, making just $770,000 in its second weekend for a 10-day total of $3.9 million. Roadside’s disturbing Anniversary with Diane Lane, Kyle Chandler, and Dylan O’Brien made just $259,000 in 809 theaters and has made $344,000 since Wednesday. Neon’s release of Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident expanded to 87 theaters and made $210,000. A24’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You moved from 64 theaters to 261 and made $172,000 for a total of $790,000.
(NOTE: Allegedly, Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters grossed over $5 million in theaters over the weekend, but no grosses were officially reported, so c’est la vie.)
On the Vine: Predator: Badlands Hopes to Get the Box Office Back on Track
The winter season begins next week and not soon enough. And what better to kick off the impending holiday season than with Predator: Badlands. Elle Fanning stars in Dan Trachtenberg’s follow-up to Prey, which regenerated some goodwill for this franchise, and this should have a pretty solid start. Lionsgate also has the teenage drama I Wish You All The Best. It is also awards season, so look around for Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson in Lynne Ramsay’s post-partum nightmare Die My Love. Neon releases Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, which is generating significant Oscar buzz and is already Certified Fresh at 96% on the Tomatometer. Critics are a bit more mixed on Sydney Sweeney in the boxing drama Christy (currently at 68%), and Sony Classics has Rami Malek and Russell Crowe in the timely Nuremberg (currently at 68%).
Full List of Box Office Results: October 31 – November 2, 2025
Regretting You – $8.1 million ($27.5 million total)
Black Phone 2 – $8.0 million ($61.4 million total)
Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc – $6.0 million ($30.7 million total)
Bugonia – $4.8 million ($5.8 million total)
Back to the Future (re-release) – $4.7 million ($4.7 million total)
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere – $3.8 million ($16.2 million total)
Tron: Ares – $2.8 million ($67.8 million total)
Stitch Head – $2.1 million ($2.5 million total)
Good Fortune – $1.4 million ($14.6 million total)
One Battle After Another – $1.1 million ($67.7 million total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast. [box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by Jessica Miglio/©Paramount Pictures