{"id":157289,"date":"2025-09-20T15:29:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/157289\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T15:29:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:29:08","slug":"big-bold-beautiful-journey-bombs-demon-slayer-him-tie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/157289\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Big Bold Beautiful Journey’ Bombs; ‘Demon Slayer’, ‘Him’ Tie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSATURDAY AM: Refresh for chart and more analysis After two weekends of overperforming, the September box office steps on the brakes, down -49% from last weekend to $76.9M. Sony\/Crunchyroll\u2019s Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and Universal\/Monkeypaw\u2019s Him<\/a> are in a dead heat with $15M-$16M apiece\u2014 it\u2019s still too early to call which one is No. 1. <\/p>\n

\n\tInfinity Castle is playing exactly like an anime movie, completely front-loaded, with a second weekend drop around -78%, but as we told you, the highest grossing anime movie at the domestic box office is expected to cross $100M today. <\/p>\n

\n\tHim won Friday with $6.47M and a C- CinemaScore, with Rotten Tomatoes ratings at 28% Critics, 58% audience score. Universal is calling the Jordan Peele produced movie at $15M in second currently, with an anticipated drop on Sunday due to NFL games of -37% for the football horror movie. <\/p>\n

\n\tHere\u2019s the sad news of the weekend, and everyone saw this coming: Sony\u2019s play for female moviegoers with the Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell star-studded romance drama, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey<\/a>, is finding no road at the box office with $3.5M for the $50M studio acquisition in 6th place. The Sony release is getting beaten by an animated movie and a horror film with a fresh face actor and 1990s comedian (Tyriq Withers and Marlon Wayans). Many sound the bell for original movies, which this project was, a title off The Black List, penned by Seth Reiss and directed by rising auteur Kogonada. However, what this shows is that star power alone attached to non-IP fare, can\u2019t pull in moviegoers when its weighted down by poor critical reviews (this movie panned at 38% with great complaints over its pace), and not-so-hot audience scores with a 44% definite recommend and 2 1\/2 stars on Screen Engine\/Comscore\u2019s PostTrak as well as a B- CinemaScore. Oy. <\/p>\n

\n\tBy comparison, the specialty adult summer play, A24\u2019s Materialists, with Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, looks like a blockbuster with an $11.3M domestic opening (and now $100M+ global gross for the net $20M movie). But that had better views at 79% certified fresh. Interestingly enough, Materialists and Big Bold Journey have the same audience exits of B- and mid 60% RT popcorn score. <\/p>\n

\n\tDespite having a social media reach according to RelishMix at 266 million across TikTok, Instagram, X, Facebook, and YouTube, which is 57% ahead of other romance movies (but 21% behind the Sony-Wayfarer title It Ends With Us which hit over 377 million on social), there\u2019s a bad stink on Big Bold Beautiful Journey with the analytics corp noticing mixed-to-negative comments. <\/p>\n

\n\tReports RelishMix, \u201cSome viewers smell sentimentality and algorithmic gloss. Skeptics tag the vibe as trailer-deep with lines like \u2018This feels like a trailer for a fake movie\u2019 and point to tonal saccharine with \u2018Touchy feely picture\u2026 emotional diabetes.\u2019 Comparisons skew cautionary with\u00a0Black Mirror\u00a0and even AI commercial jokes, plus a few drive-by age and body takes dragging the cast. Receipts land with \u2018What\u00a0Black Mirror\u00a0episode is this?\u2019 and \u2018Looks like a AI generated commercial.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHim is 51%\/49% men-to-women with a low definite recommend of 41%, but it\u2019s horror, which gives it more mojo than Big Bold Beautiful Journey. Diversity demos are 36% Black, 34% Caucasian, 20% Latino and Hispanic and 6% Asian American. Men over 25 rep 33% of ticket buyers with women over 25 at 31%, men under 25 at 19% and women under 25 at 17% for the R-rated title. PLFs, which are split with Demon Slayer, are driving 37% of the weekend. An even play throughout the country for Him with notable touchdowns in the West, South Central, South and East after a slew of spots since August on football. Best gross in the nation so far comes from AMC Universal\u2019s Citywalk Hollywood (CA) with close to $32K. <\/p>\n

\n\tBig Bold Beautiful Journey saw 59% women with 44% women over 25 (who gave the movie its best grades at 71% on PostTrak). It looks like some guys got pulled into this movie as +1s with the second most-attending demo being men over 25 at 32%. This is further underscored by the stats that close to 40% came with a spouse\/partner\/boyfriend or girlfriend. Diversity demos are 58% Caucasian, 25% Latino and Hispanic, 8% Asian American and 5% Black. A handful of PLFs which only represent 12% of the weekend, I understand with West, Midwest and Mountain regions being where the bulk of the business is. AMC Grove is the top grossing venue so far this weekend with just under $12K. <\/p>\n

\n\tMore\u2026 <\/p>\n

\n\tFRIDAY AM: Universal and Monkeypaw\u2019s football horror movie Him did $2 million from previews that began at 2 p.m. Thursday. That number is just above Lionsgate\u2019s preview take on Stephen King\u2019s The Long Walk ($1.3M) a week ago, and Blumhouse\u2019s Speak No Evil ($1.3M) a year ago. Him, which stars Marlon Wayans, Julia Fox and Tyriq Withers, is expected to open in the mid-teen millions this weekend; The Long Walk opened to $11.7M, while Speak No Evil did $11.4M in its first frame.<\/p>\n

\n\tCritics aren\u2019t sticking around in the stands for Him at 30% on Rotten Tomatoes, and last night\u2019s audience wasn\u2019t impressed at 59%. Yikes. We\u2019ll see where this goes. Him was made for a net $27M.<\/p>\n

\n\tSony\/Crunchyroll\u2019s Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle is expected to stand tall in its second weekend with a take between $14M-$21M. The movie will share Imax screens with Him but hold onto PLFs. Pic\u2019s first week ends at $87.4M after a $2.6M Thursday, down 26%. It\u2019s already the highest-grossing anime movie of all time at the domestic box office, having surpassed 1999\u2019s Pokemon from Warner Bros ($85.7M). Next, Demon Slayer will conquer securing $100M stateside, again a first for anime movie in the U.S. and Canada.<\/p>\n

\n\tColumbia Pictures\u2019 Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie romance A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, is not huge in its previews with $400,000 from Thursday early shows that began at 4 p.m. at 2737 locations. Critics had no patience for this one at 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. No audience score. Sony sees the opening at $10M, others see it much lower.<\/p>\n

\n\tTop five for the week:<\/p>\n

\n\t1.) Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle (Sony) 3,315 theaters, Thur $2.6M (-29% from Wed), Week $87.4M\/Wk 1 <\/p>\n

\n\t2.) Conjuring: Last Rites (NL) 3,802 theaters, Thurs $1.56M (-8%), Week $33.2M (-68%), Total $138.2M\/Wk 2<\/p>\n

\n\t3.) Downton Abbey: Grand Finale (Foc) 3,694 theaters, Thurs $1.38M (-16%), Week $25.3M\/Wk 1<\/p>\n

\n\t4.) Long Walk (LG) 2,845 theaters, Thurs $890K (-17%), Week $16.4M, Wk 1<\/p>\n

\n\t5.) Toy Story 30th anniversary reissue (Dis) 2,375 theaters, Thurs $174K (-33%), Wk $4.4M, Lifetime cume $227.6M\/Wk 1 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SATURDAY AM: Refresh for chart and more analysis After two weekends of overperforming, the September box office steps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[79942,49,48,11217,75,1621,337],"class_list":["post-157289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-a-big-bold-beautiful-journey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-demon-slayer-kimetsu-no-yaiba-infinity-castle","tag-entertainment","tag-him","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}