1. Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl– $33M
This is Taylor Swift’s world and we’re just living in it. Despite lukewarm reviews of her latest album, and less than a month since this special event was booked through AMC, Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl dominated the weekend with $33M, putting Dwayne Johnson’s The Smashing Machine down for the count. Overall, the fan film has $46M worldwide.
2. One Battle After Another– $11.1M/$42.7M
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another slid from the top spot but held quite well, falling just 49%. Worldwide, the well-reviewed film has $101M total, the first $100M movie of Anderson’s career. Crazy, right? The closest was the $76M earned by There Will Be Blood.
3. The Smashing Machine (review)- $6M
Dwayne Johnson’s bid for an Oscar with the MMA drama The Smashing Machine hit a roadblock. The A24 film opened with just $6M, the lowest major release ever for Johnson. Reviews were okay with critics holding it at 74% on Rotten Tomatoes and audiences at 78%. Something tells me the sudden emergence of a Taylor Swift movie caught every distributor unaware and we’re seeing the result of that. Otherwise, what’s the reason audiences seem disinterested? Perhaps there just isn’t that much excitement over Johnson making a movie that’s clearly meant to be awards bait? They’d rather watch him punch a gorilla or survive an earthquake or something.
4. Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie– $5.2M/$21.6M
5. The Conjuring: Last Rites– $4M/$167.8M
6. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle– $3.5M/$124.6M
7. Avatar: The Way of Water– $3.1M
Disney re-released Avatar: The Way of Water into 2,140 screens and earned $3.1M. This serves as a refresher ahead of the Christmas release of Avatar: Fire & Ash, which, if it performs like the previous two movies, will be in the record books before long.
8. The Strangers: Chapter 22- $2.8M/$10.6M
9. Good Boy (review)- $2.2M
IFC/Shudder released the canine supernatural horror flick Good Boy into 1650 theaters and it fetched an impressive $2.2M. The ghost story seen from a dog’s perspective has received universal acclaim and currently has a 93% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes.
10. The Long Walk– $1.7M/$31.9M
Also…Bleecker Street had its own horror movie to drop into theaters over the weekend. Bone Lake (review) about an Airbnb double-booking that turns into a psychosexual nightmare, earned just $828K in just over 1000 theaters. This was always going to be a tough weekend for such a small, niche movie, but I’m personally disappointed to see it do so poorly.
Finally, the return of Daniel Day-Lewis to the big screen wasn’t enough to attract audiences to Anemone (review), his first role since 2017’s Phantom Thread. Directed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis, the film has been battered by critics and audiences alike on Rotten Tomatoes, and seems to have shot down any Oscars hopes.
