Those who have been paying attention to the box world in recent months have surely recognized the movie theater industry's precarious state. While big blockbusters like Matt Reeves' The Batman and Jon Watts' Spider-Man: No Way Home have done amazing business, smaller, non-IP releases have had a harder time getting attention. It's been a troubling period, but that just makes the big success of Aaron and Adam Nee's The Lost City this weekend so significant.
Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis!
| TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The Lost City* | $31,000,000 | $31,000,000 | Row 0 - Cell 3 | 4,253 |
| 2. The Batman | $20,500,000 | $331,951,314 | 1 | 3,967 |
| 3. RRR: Rise, Roar, Revolt* | $9,500,000 | $9,500,000 | Row 2 - Cell 3 | 1,200 |
| 4. Uncharted | $5,000,000 | $133,550,542 | 3 | 3,416 |
| 5. Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie | $4,575,435 | $27,719,156 | 2 | 2,418 |
| 6. X | $2,229,531 | $8,298,028 | 4 | 2,920 |
| 7. Dog | $2,108,012 | $57,874,950 | 5 | 2,839 |
| 8. Spider-Man: No Way Home | $2,000,000 | $800,588,139 | 6 | 2,003 |
| 9. Sing 2 | $1,280,000 | $160,256,880 | 10 | 2,626 |
| 10. Infinite Storm* | $751,296 | $751,296 | Row 9 - Cell 3 | 1,525 |
Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum's The Lost City's Debut Weekend Is A Huge Win For The Movie Theater Experience
While prognosticators last week said that The Lost City was looking at a total between $25 million and $30 million from its first three days, the new romantic comedy managed to hit the high end of expectations with an excellent $31 million start at the box office (according to The Numbers). It still has some distance to go before it becomes profitable on paper, as the film was made with a $74 million production budget – not including marketing and publicity costs – but it's an excellent launch for the film, and the third biggest thus far in 2022 (earning more than both Jeff Tremaine's Jackass Forever and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett's Scream did in their respective opening weekends.)
The most exciting part of these results is the fact that this is the best debut for a feature that is not part of an existing franchise since the start of the pandemic. Prior to The Lost City, it was Channing Tatum and Reid Carolin's Dog that set the high water mark for 2022, the move making $14.9 million when it premiered opposite Ruben Fleischer's Uncharted in late February – but this success is much bigger than that. The original film also successfully eclipsed the opening weekend performances by Shawn Levy's Free Guy ($28.4 million) and Byron Howard, Jared Bush, and Charise Castro Smith's Encanto ($27.2 million). This is a big win.
The success of The Lost City is also huge for both Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, as it ranks in the Top 10 best openings for both of their careers. For context, the new release made around the same amount of money as both Anne Fletcher's The Proposal and Phil Lord and Chris Miller's 21 Jump Street – two titles that are considered among the biggest hits in Bullock and Tatum's careers.
Because of its familiar plot, The Lost City has been compared to Robert Zemeckis' Romancing The Stone, a four-quadrant classic, and the new movie's box office performance is suggesting it as a similar kind of win. According to Variety, the audience demographics show that women drove the majority of the film's business this weekend (approximately 56 percent), but also significant is that movie-goers both older and younger than 35 purchased tickets to see it.
That kind of wide reach could be an indicator that the new hit will be able to demonstrate some healthy legs as it goes toe-to-toe against the titles that Hollywood has set to arrive in April – including including franchise titles like Daniel Espinosa's Morbius starring Jared Leto, and Jeff Fowler's Sonic The Hedgehog 2 starring Ben Schwartz and Jim Carrey. From a health-of-the-industry perspective, it hopefully will continue to do well, as its success could ultimately help inspire major studios to have more confidence in their original features and stop skipping weekends.
The Batman May No Longer Be Number One Domestically, But It Did Still Pass A Significant Milestone
With The Lost City becoming the new "Number One Movie In America," The Batman has lost a title that it held for three straight weeks, but it's not all bad news. Not only did the comic book blockbuster successfully add another $20.5 million to its domestic haul (bringing the total to about $332 million), but it continues to crush overseas, and it is now part of the very exclusive club of films that have made over $600 million since the start of the global pandemic.
Only three other Hollywood titles have made that much money selling tickets for the theatrical experience. Spider-Man: No Way Home is the big champ, having earned $1.89 billion to date, but also part of the club are Cary Joji Fukunaga's No Time To Die ($762.5 million) and Justin Lin's F9 ($721.1 million). Thus far the latest Caped Crusader movie has made $631.1 million globally, meaning that it is conceivable that the film will ultimately make over $700 million before it is done playing on the big screen.
RRR: Rise, Roar, Revolt Has An Impressive And Unexpectedly Big Domestic Debut
Similar to how the success of Sunghoo Park's Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie surprised us last week, this time around we have another import that managed to put up some awesome numbers at the box office. S. S. Rajamouli's RRR: Rise, Roar, Revolt is an Indian Telugu-language that played in 1,200 locations the past three days, and it sold enough tickets to not only earn $9.5 million, but third place in the domestic Top 10.
Even more impressive is the fact that the numbers put up by RRR: Rise, Roar, Revolt mean that it had the tenth biggest opening of 2022 thus far, the film outperforming films like Kat Corio's Marry Me (which had a hybrid theatrical/digital release over Valentine's Day weekend) and Simon Kinberg's star-studded thriller The 355 from January.
Looking ahead to next weekend, this Friday will see The Lost City compete with Morbius as the film industry's big new title. Will the comic book movie's relationship to the Spider-Man franchise and Jared Leto's star power see it rake in some big bucks? Or will the romantic comedy's wave of buzz keep it afloat and see it win its second box office crown?
Be sure to come back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see the full results – and in the meantime, you can take a peek at everything that is set to hit the big screen in the coming weeks/months by heading over to our 2022 Movie Release Calendar.
