Been back to the movie theaters yet? We've been going regularly again (huzzah!) but this week we skipped the new releases and took in a special one-night screening of The Graduate (1967) for the Movies with MZS at IFC Center. Next month he's showing Body Heat (1981) which is so perfect (you know we're fans) so if you're in NYC and you've never seen it now is your chance to see Kathleen Turner's jaw-dropping debut on the big screen.
Anyway. Here is the chart. What did you see this past week/weekend?
| Weekend Box Office July 16th-18th 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended |
|
| WIDE RELEASE |
PLATFORM TITLES |
 Black Widow |
 Pig |
| 1 SPACE JAM A NEW LEGACY 🔺 $31 |
1 PIG 🔺 $970k |
| 2 BLACK WIDOW $25.8 (cum. $131.6) Best of First Half | 2 SUMMER OF SOUL $180K (cum. $1.8) Murtada's Review, Glenn's Take |
| 3 ESCAPE ROOM 2 🔺 $8.8 | 3 12 MIGHTY ORPHANS $88k (cum. $3.3) |
| 4 F9 THE FAST SAGA $7.6 (cum. $154.8) | 4 QUEEN BEES $49k (cum. $1.7) |
| 5 THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS $4.7 (cum. $44.6) | 5 I CARRY YOU WITH ME $26k (cum. $135k) Nick's Review | Nathaniel's Top 10 List |
 Zola |
 Mama Weed |
| 6 THE FOREVER PURGE $4.1 (cum. $35.8) |
6 SUMMERTIME ($21k (cum. $43k) Abe's Review |
| 7 A QUIET PLACE PART 2 $2.2 (cum. $154.9) Nathaniel's Capsule | 7 WEREWOLVES WITHIN $15k (cum. $557k) Jason's Review |
| 8 ROADRUNNER: ANTHONY BOURDAIN 🔺 $1.9 | 8 WITNESSES $13k (cum. $771k) |
| 9 CRUELLA $1.1 (cum. $83.3) Wardrobe Ranking, Makeup Artist Interview, On Artie | 9 MAMA WEED 🔺 $8k *new* |
| 10 THE HITMAN'S WIFES BODYGUARD $775k (cum. $36.6) | 10 THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS $8k (cum. $494k) |
| 11 ZOLA $744k (cum. $4.2) Murtada's Review, Best of First Half | 10 RITA MORENO: JUST A GIRL... $4k (cum. $257k) Abe's Review |
| 12 PETER RABBIT 2 $605k (cum. $39.2) | 10 SUMMER OF 85 $3k (cum. $67k) Nick's Review |
Space Jam opened big (as family films tend to) but was critically panned while Black Widow suffered the ignoble fate of getting the all time biggest second week drop for a Marvel film. Since people appear to like it that's surely due to Disney's risky decision to release it at home simultaneously. They're throwing away hundreds of millions to appease Disney+ interests since before Disney+ they could usually get their audiences to pay for a movie three times (twice in theaters and then another purchase at home). Now they're mostly just getting a one time charge of $30 but the budget for the movie (and presumably future Marvel Studios movies unless they realize they'll no longer make one billion from each release) is still as big as those budgets ever were!
F9 will overtake A Quiet Place Part 2 as the biggest hit of this strange movie-strangling era this week. (Black Widow is the only other title since the pandemic began to cross $100 million at the US box office though Godzilla vs Kong came close)
In limited release NEON's Pig starring Nicolas Cage's had a lot of buzz but couldn't quite crack a million at 552 theaters. Meanwhile A24's Zola lost almost that many theaters in its third weekend but is still solidly performing and crossed $4 million. Have you seen it yet? So good. SPC totally mishandled I Carry You With Me with a bizarre Oscar qualifying release last year followed by a lengthy wait before theaters. It's unfortunately not found the audience it deserved after a month in theaters.
Finally, we were happy to discover that all-stars-of-a-certain-age comedy Queen Bees has earned a decent $1.7 million with virtually no publicity over the past six weeks. Sadly it was only in NYC for a hot second in its first week so we ourselves missed it. Have any of you seen it?