BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE kicked off the post-summer period with a powerful opening of $110M, the second-largest September opening of all time. The only film to earn more from a September opening was the horror movie IT, which grossed $123.4M from September 8-10, 2017. The box office for all films this weekend surged to $150M, miles ahead of the same weekend last year when THE NUN 2 opened to $32.6M and all films earned $88.3M. A first-place win for the PG-13-rated BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE ends a streak of six weekends when an R-rated movie was #1 at the box office.
After a brief setback last weekend, the 2024 surge in movie ticket sales that began with the July 26th opening of DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE has picked up again. Over those 45 days, 2024’s $1.498B has outpaced 2023’s total of $1.281B by 14%. Just before DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE’s opening, the box office for 2024 sat at 79% compared with 2023 totals. Since then, 2024 has climbed back up to 86% of 2023’s totals. The 21-day forecast is also sunny, with SPEAK NO EVIL (9/13), TRANSFORMERS ONE (9/20), and THE WILD ROBOT (9/27) expected to keep business humming.
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE is the long-awaited sequel to the legendary BEETLEJUICE that premiered on March 30, 1988. It has been reported that director Tim Burton and star Michael Keaton were hesitant to sign on to a new project due to a concern that a sequel could jeopardize the revered status of the original. Over the years, several concepts were considered and rejected, including BEETLEJUICE GOES HAWAIIAN and BEETLEJUICE GOES WEST. Finally, in 2022, Brad Pitt’s Plan B and Warner Bros. began to put together the elements for an acceptable project that Burton and Keaton could agree to.
Burton was promised the freedom he needed to re-animate the original story, after a 36-year hiatus. After reading the proposed script, Keaton was excited to see that the new film’s storyline was even stronger than the original’s, giving the characters “more of a connection” to its audience.
Burton and Keaton decided that the new movie would limit the screen time for the title character, to maximize the impact of Beetlejuice when on screen. The storyline begins in the aftermath of a family tragedy, which brings three generations of the Deetz family home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Astrid, accidentally opens a portal to the Afterlife.
When BEETLEJUICE premiered in 1988, the motion picture exhibition industry was in a decided different place. One major difference was that the original debuted in only 1,000 locations, and expanded to a mere 1,500 theatres at its widest release. Today, BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE began in 4,575 locations, making it the widest opening picture of 2024
BATTLE OF BEETLEJUICE
- BEETLEJUICE (3/30/1988) – Opening Locations 1,000, Opening Weekend $8.0M, Per Theatre Average $8,030, Total Domestic $74.4M, Budget $15M, RT Critics/Audience 83%/77%
- BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE (9/6/2024) – Opening Locations 4,575, Opening Weekend $110.0M, Per Theatre Average $24,044, Budget $100M, RT Critics/Audience 82%/83%
The $100M opening for BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE has already surpassed the box office for the entire run of BEETLEJUICE, which came in at $74.7M. That amount from 1988 equates to $198.6M in 2024 dollars, and it will take another week or two for BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE to pass that marker. The sequel is certain to make a profit, which it should achieve after it brings in $250M in worldwide gross.
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE fell into second place with $7.2M this weekend, a drop of 53%. Marvel’s superhero sequel continues to pad its record-setting performance for an R-rated movie, having earned $614M domestic and $1.282B worldwide after 45 days. That makes it the second-highest-grossing film of 2024 in North America, slightly behind Pixar’s INSIDE OUT 2 which has earned $651M domestically and $1.017B worldwide.
Showbiz Direct’s biopic REAGAN continued to plug along, generating $5.2M in new ticket sales and falling only 32% in its second weekend. It landed in third place this weekend and has grossed $18.5M total in U.S. and Canadian theatres since it opened. Critics have been withering in their assessment of the film, giving it only a 20% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The public has arrived at a very different conclusion, cheering on the 40th President of the United States with a 98% audience score. It is virtually unheard of to have such a dramatic separation between the critics and audience scores, a whopping 78 percentage point gap. One can only imagine what the delta will be when THE APPRENTICE opens on October 11th, said to be quite an unflattering portrait of President Donald Trump.
ALIEN: ROMULUS fell into fourth place with only $3.9M this weekend, a decline of 58% from last weekend. The sixth movie in the sci-fi series has a 24-day total of $97.2M domestic and $301M worldwide, the second highest-grossing movie in the franchise, behind PROMETHEUS from 2012.
ALIEN LEADERS AFTER 24 DAYS
- PROMETHEUS (8/8/12) – Domestic Opening $51.1M, Domestic 24-Day $118.3M, 4th Weekend Drop -50%, Domestic Total $126.5M, Worldwide Total $403.4M, Budget $130M, RT Critics/Audience 73%/68%
- ALIEN: ROMULUS (8/16/24) – Domestic Opening $42.0M, Domestic 24-Day $97.2M, 4th Weekend Drop -58%, Budget $80M, RT Critics/Audience 80%/85%
ALIEN: ROMULUS has passed $300M worldwide, and we expect it to wind up earning approximately $320M which makes its box office 4 times the $80M spent on its production. Based on this success, we expect more Aliens to appear in the years ahead.
Sony’s romantic drama IT ENDS WITH US fell into fifth place, with an additional $3.8M this weekend and a drop of 49%. The Blake Lively film has outperformed all expectations, with a 31-day gross of $141.4M domestic and $309.4M worldwide, making it the highest-grossing original (non-sequel) film of 2024. It sits in 10th place among all movies of 2024, having just passed A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE which brought in $138.9M. We estimate that IT ENDS WITH US will finish with $155M in the domestic market.
WHERE ARE WE AS OF 9/5
After 35 weeks, the 2024 year-to-date box office has climbed to 85% of 2023 totals and 73% of 2019 totals at this same point in the year.
