Yesterday, it looked pretty clear that Universal’s The Black Phone 2 was going to top the slowest weekend at the box office this month. However, in a surprising turn of events, those who weren’t home last night watching the Los Angeles Dodgers squeak out a World Series win against the Toronto Blue Jays made it so the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation, Regretting You, managed to top the box office. However, we’re talking a difference of only $100k here, with Regretting You making $8.1 million compared to The Black Phone 2’s $8 million (only $1 million more than we predicted earlier this week). With that tight a margin, it’s possible the positions will be reversed when the final numbers are reported.
Interestingly, both movies feature rising star Mason Thames, who’s had a great year between these two movies and the smash How to Train Your Dragon remake. Regretting You has had a softer performance at the box office than the last Colleen Hoover adaptation, It Ends With Us, but it also didn’t have the same kind of star power (or controversy), meaning this will no doubt be a profitable movie for Paramount, with its gross sitting at $27.5 million. The Black Phone 2 is Blumhouse’s best performer in a while, with it having grossed $61 million — paving the way for an inevitable Black Phone 3 (and maybe 4, 5, etc.).
Last week’s anime box office topper, Chainsaw Man: The Movie, had a huge second-week decline of 67%, making $6 million for a $30.7 million total. Bugonia, by Yorgos Lanthimos, was another adult-skewing awards movie that had trouble attracting an audience, although its $4.8 million weekend is actually his largest expansion opening ever. Back to the Future, which got a 40th-anniversary IMAX reissue this weekend, made $4.7 million, bringing its all-time box office total to $221 million — although adjusted for inflation, it would be over $600 million nowadays.
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere died in its second weekend, falling a big 57% in week 2, with only $3.8 million and a grand total just over $16 million. Ouch — this one has to hurt for Searchlight, although it will no doubt find a bigger audience once it hits Hulu. To note, K-Pop Demon Hunters is probably on the list somewhere around this spot, with Deadline estimating it made about $3.4 million this weekend — but Netflix doesn’t report box office numbers, so there’s no surefire way of knowing.
Meanwhile, Tron: Ares continued its weak box office run, with $2.8 million and a $67 million domestic total. Given the rumored $200 million budget, this one is going to bleed red ink. The indie-animated movie Stitch Head had a modest $2.1 million opening, which isn’t bad for a movie with next to no buzz. Sadly, Aziz Ansari’s Good Fortune continued comedy’s troubling run at the box office, wrapping up its run with only $1.4 million and a terrible $14.6 million domestic total, despite Keanu Reeves in a starring role.
Finally, the top ten was rounded out by P.T. Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which made $1.15 million for a $67.7 million total as it moves from a wide release into the arthouses and more specialized runs (such as the Vista in L.A., where it’s showing in VistaVision). Next weekend sees the release of Predator: Badlands, which folks are banking on throwing some extra muscle into the box office.