Although no major studio ever planned this, the Oscar ceremony over the past three years post-Covid fell on a weekend when there’s was a No. 1 film to brag about at the box office.
Last year, the Oscar frame had Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4 opening to $57.9M, while 2023 had Paramount/Spyglass’ Scream VI opening to a franchise domestic-record $44.4M, and 2022 — when the ceremony fell on March 27 — saw the return of the rom-com with Paramount’s Sandra Bullock-Channing Tatum movie Lost City posting a $30.4M start.
At a time when we want people to return to movie theaters, while also watching the Oscars, having a solid No. 1 opening assists in propping and highlighting the motion picture industry.
But not this year.
Get a blankie and a pillow, for here’s how the weekend is going to shake out:
The third weekend of Disney/Marvel Studio’s Captain America: Brave New World is set to do around $14M, -50%. That’s because the Anthony Mackie movie is holding on to its Imax screens. While the comp on Brave New World has been 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, that threequel’s third weekend ran into Amazon MGM Studios’ Creed III, which stole all the Imax and PLF screens, generating a 60% decline for the Paul Rudd-Evangeline Lilly movie. Brave New World made $1.75M on Monday bringing its running total to $142.9M.
Neon’s Oz Perkins movie The Monkey, based on the Stephen King short story, will be down around 60% or more, so $5.6M. The pic collected $994K on Monday for a $15M running total. Perkins’ Longlegs from last July eased by 47% off a C+ CinemaScore, which is the same grade that The Monkey notched.
Offering adults a different choice is Focus Features’ PG-13 deep-sea-diver thriller Last Breath, which will do around $5M-$9M. Reviews have yet to lift, but for men and women over 25, they’re apt to be intrigued, we hear. Focus is committing to a linear spend. The Alex Parkinson-directed title is booked at 3,011 locations, including D-Box screens.
Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, Finn Cole and Cliff Curtis star in Last Breath, which was developed by Longshot Films and produced alongside Dark Castle Entertainment. Focus took domestic and a few foreign territories. Producers are David Brooks, Paul Brooks, Hal Sadoff, Norman Golightly, Jeremy Plager, Stewart le Maréchal, Al Morrow and Anna Mohr-Pietsch.
Written by Mitchell LaFortune, Alex Parkinson and David Brooks and based on a true story, Last Breath follows a seasoned deep-sea diver as he battles the raging elements to rescue his crewmate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface. It’s the only wide entry this weekend. Previews start at 2 p.m. Thursday.