March 2025 has been particularly slow at the box office. Despite it being Bong Joon Ho's first film since the Best Picture-winning Parasite, Mickey 17 didn't end up lighting much of a fire when it arrived on the big screen at the start of the month, and the standout aspect of last week's Top 10 was that no single film earned over $10 million. Thankfully, the lull has been now interrupted thanks to the arrival of Marc Webb's Snow White, which has been successfully putting butts in seats since Friday.
The film industry didn't experience what could be called a major boom, and Snow White independently as a major mountain to climb from a financial standpoint, but the numbers overall are certainly far more interesting than anything we've seen this month. Check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis.
TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Snow White* | $43,000,000 | $43,000,000 | N/A | 4,200 |
2. Black Bag | $4,400,000 | $14,880,000 | 2 | 2,713 |
3. Captain America: Brave New World | $4,100,000 | $192,117,391 | 4 | 2,900 |
4. Mickey 17 | $3,900,000 | $40,222,000 | 3 | 2,584 |
5. Novocaine | $3,760,000 | $15,769,000 | 1 | 3,369 |
6. The Alto Knights* | $3,165,000 | $3,165,000 | N/A | 2,651 |
7. The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie | $1,834,285 | $6,456,412 | 5 | 2,703 |
8. The Monkey | $1,548,750 | $37,862,485 | 9 | 1,452 |
9. Dog Man | $1,500,000 | $95,631,000 | 8 | 1,766 |
10. The Last Supper | $1,335,000 | $5,325,434 | 6 | 1,575 |
Snow White Has A Solid Opening Weekend, But Its Budget Has To Be Kept In Mind When Discussing Ticket Sales
None of the live-action remakes of Disney classics have been what anyone would qualify as inexpensive, and Snow White is no exception. Nicki Caro's Mulan, Rob Marshall's The Little Mermaid, and Barry Jenkins' Mufasa: The Lion King all had budgets that were $200 million or higher, and Forbes has reported that the latest title in the run cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $270 million. Needless to say, that's the kind of detail that colors how one looks at a title's opening weekend performance.
That investment in mind, Snow White did good but not great at the box office over the last three days. According to The Numbers, the new release successfully topped the domestic chart by banking $43 million. As far as the franchise goes, that's a higher gross than Craig Gillespie's Cruella from 2021 ($21.5 million), and it's more than what Mufasa: The Lion King made ($35.4 million) during the highly competitive stretch that was December 2024, but it's less than half of what The Little Mermaid brought in during the Memorial Day weekend in 2023 ($95.6 million).
It's worth noting that all three of those titles ended up being wildly successful in the long run, collectively earning $1.5 billion worldwide.
As far as Snow White's overseas numbers are concerned, they thus far match what is going on in the United States and Canada. Per early reports, the film has made $44.3 million in foreign markets, equating to an $87.3 million take globally in the last three days.
The film has taken a good long while to arrive, with principal photography having began all the way back in March 2022, and the reception has been mixed. Our own Sarah ElMahmoud gave Snow White a three-and-a-half star CinemaBlend review, sharing a great amount of praise for the performance by Rachel Zegler in the lead role, and CinemaScore surveys have returned a solid "B+" grade.
In the long run, though, it will be younger audiences that determine the future of Snow White on the big screen. If it successfully becomes an obsession for kids, and they want to watch it over and over again, the film will end up with a solid box office legacy. How the movie performs next week, particularly without any direct competition stealing the attention of its main demographics, will be something on which industry analysts will be keeping an eye.
The Alto Knights Fails To Inspire Any Enthusiasm,
Things could definitely could be worse for Snow White: it could have gotten the reception that has greeted Barry Levinson's The Alto Knights to theaters this weekend. Released by Warner Bros., the new movie offers audiences two Robert De Niros for the price of one, and the gangster film has the actor back in the genre that helped turn him into the legend that he is, but it has been panned and pretty much ignored by audiences.
The Alto Knights played in over 2,600 locations this weekend, and it only managed to make $3.2 million – which wasn't even enough for it to place in the Top 5 domestically. The film also got a worse critical reception than Snow White (a 37 percent on Rotten Tomatoes compared to the 43 percent approval rating for the Disney feature), and CinemaScore surveys returned a "B" grade. Things haven't started off well for the movie's big screen run, and there is so suggestion that things will get better for it in the weeks ahead.
Per Variety, The Alto Knights was made with a budget $45 million, which means that the title is very likely going to be recalled as a significant flop.
Black Bag Has A Strong Weekend-To-Weekend Performance While Novocaine Drops To Fifth Place
As for the holdover titles, one of the most interesting developments we're seeing in this week's chart is the performance by Steven Soderberg's Black Bag. Debuting last weekend, the spy thriller starring Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett opened in second place with an unimpressive $7.6 million, but it has notably held on to that positioning seven days later and only saw its box office numbers drop 42 percent. The film has been getting good word of mouth going (CinemaBlend's Mike Reyes gave it a four-and-a-half star review), and it will be interesting to see if that translates to it sticking around in the Top 10 for a little while after the end of March.
Dan Berk and Robert Olsen's Novocaine hasn't been as successful. It was nice to see an original action comedy top the domestic charts last weekend, and the Jack Quaid-starrer has gotten good buzz, but it appears as though its box office performance is going to be front-loaded. Ticket sales dipped 57 percent compared to where the feature was last Sunday, as it only brought in $3.8 million since Friday. To date, the movie has made $15.8 million domestically.
Looking ahead to Friday, Alex Scharfman's Death Of A Unicorn starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega is riding into theaters along with the action of David Ayer's A Working Man starring Jason Statham, and Jaume Collet-Serra's horror film The Woman In The Yard. How will they shake up the box office Top 10? Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to find out, and check out our 2025 Movie Release Calendar to discover all of the titles heading to the big screen and streaming in the weeks and months ahead.
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