Men in Black International snagged first place at the domestic box office last weekend, opening right around where tracking had it pegged at $30 million. Still, this was a rather disappointing debut for the Sony film, a disappointment that could have been somewhat lessened had the movie held strong and shown decent legs. That was not the case though, and Men in Black International saw a huge drop at the box office in its second weekend.
After debuting with $30.03 million in its opening weekend, Men in Black International dropped 64% in its second frame to an estimated $10.75 million, according to Box Office Mojo. That knocks the F. Gary Gray film down from the top spot at the box office, a spot it was always going to cede to Toy Story 4, to fourth place, behind the Pixar flick, the Child’s Play reboot and Aladdin, which has held remarkably well and opened in theaters three weeks prior to MIB.
Dropping 64%, despite maintaining the same theater count (4,224) does not bode well for Men in Black International’s domestic run, which looked to have an uphill battle from the start. This is easily the biggest second week drop for any film in the franchise, with Men in Black, Men in Black II and Men in Black 3 falling 41.1%, 53.2% and 48.6%, respectively.
Men in Black International now stands at over $52 million domestic, which is about the amount all of the previous movies in this franchise enjoyed in their opening weekends. Overseas, where it had been assumed this film would need to make its money, Men in Black International has fared better, making another $30 million over the weekend for an international total of $129 million and a worldwide haul of a little over $182 million.
The budget for Men in Black International has been reported to be around $110 million with co-financing deals and promotional partnerships possibly reducing that down below the $100 million mark. But even at that, it’s hard to see Men in Black International ever being called a success, which is undoubtedly a disappointment for Sony as it tried to relaunch and capitalize a once popular franchise.
This summer has thus far been one of disappointment for sequels and franchise films without a castle in the opening credits and a Disney logo attached, but that doesn’t mean that their failures are all symptomatic of the same thing.
If we look at Men in Black International, it suffered unflattering reviews and currently sits at 23% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it may still have held better in its second weekend if it had positive word of mouth coming out of last weekend. That doesn’t appear to have been the case though, or at least the word of mouth wasn’t positive enough to get audiences into theaters.
On CinemaScore the film earned a rather unremarkable “B.” The previous three Men in Black films all performed slightly better with “B+” scores, but those were accompanied with much better box office returns.
There was reportedly all kind of behind-the-scenes drama on Men in Black International, which certainly doesn’t seem to have helped the final product. If Sony wants this franchise to succeed once again, there is clearly a lot of work to be done to get things back on track.
Men in Black International is now playing. Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of all this summer’s biggest movies.
