Argylle Stays on Top
Director Matthew Vaughn’s spy caper Argylle kept its hold by staying at number one in its second frame on the traditionally slow Super Bowl box office weekend. The big-budget Universal/Apple co-production took in an estimated $6.5 million in 3,605 North American theaters (no change from last week), putting its domestic total at $28.81 million.
That top spot hold notwithstanding, this is not the most spectacular performance for a $200 million+ budget with big names, but as we mentioned last week, the film’s older-skewing cast clashed with the younger audience they were aiming for with the PG-13 rating, with most of the under-30’s not showing up. Poor audience exit polling has not helped either, indicating the film may not have brought audiences in even if it had been released in a non-dump month slot.
Compare Argylle to this time last year, when Magic Mike’s Last Dance debuted at #1 with $8.3 million, or the previous year when Death on the Nile brought in $12.8 million. According to Comscore (via Variety), overall ticket sales for this weekend came in at $42 million, the lowest ever recorded Super Bowl Weekend box office.
Internationally Argylle took in an additional $9.41 million to bring its international total to $31.3 million and worldwide to $60.1 million. New territories included Korea ($0.8M), Vietnam ($86K), and Slovakia ($27K), with holdovers UK and Ireland still the biggest overseas territories at $4.7 million. This makes sense as Vaughn is a UK filmmaker, and these numbers are in line with 2015’s similar comedic spy flick The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which -like Argylle– also starred Henry Cavill.
Lightning Does Not Strike Lisa Frankenstein
Outside of a few minor re-releases or upgraded releases, the only big new kid in town for this frame was Focus Features’ Lisa Frankenstein, which opened in 3,144 theaters in the US to a 3-day weekend estimate of $3.8 million dollars to take second place. It had a solid Friday with $1.7 million, dropped on Saturday to $1.38 million, then cratered on Sunday with $690,000. Exit data indicate audiences skewed 61% female/39% male, with 71% of ticket buyers under age 35.
To find a lower Super Bowl opening performance you’d have to go to 2017’s The Space Between Us, which took in $3.77 million to land at #9 in its debut at 2,812 theaters, making Lisa Frankenstein the 48th lowest Super Bowl weekend launch of all-time.
Clearly, a front-loaded release in terms of theater count to grab the horror-minded audience with its cheeky tone, the film still fell below even our own modest projections in the $5-to-$9 million range. Some of that may have to do with the poor reviews (49% on Rotten Tomatoes) and low-ish “B” CinemaScore, or perhaps the relatively untested star wattage of Kathryn Newton, who has been a supporting player in tentpoles like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, but has yet to prove a draw when she’s in the lead. Her last big horror comedy for Universal, Freaky, opened to a poor $3.6 million showing during COVID-era November 2020 to an eventual $9 million domestic cume.
Screenwriter Diablo Cody has also been unable to capitalize on her early zeitgeist-tapping success with 2007’s sleeper hit Juno, which took in $143 million domestically. Despite success in the TV realm (United States of Tara, One Mississippi), Cody’s produced screenplays since Juno (Jennifer’s Body, Young Adult, Ricki and the Flash, Tully) all grossed under $30 million domestically. It should also be noted that several recent tongue-in-cheek horror titles with young female leads have gone straight-to-streaming, including Amazon Prime’s Totally Killer and My Best Friend’s Exorcism.
Similar Horror Comedy Openings:
- Jennifer’s Body (2009) – $6.8 million ($16.2 total)
- Warm Bodies (2013) – $20.3 million ($66.3 total)
- Happy Death Day (2017) – $26 million ($55.6 total)
- Happy Death Day 2U (2019) – $9.4 million ($28.1 total)
- Ready or Not (2019) – $8 million ($28.7 total)
- Renfield (2023) – $8 million ($17.2 total)
Warm Bodies, in particular, is a good point of comparison since it was also aimed at young women and came out over Super Bowl Weekend on a similar number of screens (3,009). Compare also to Searchlight Pictures’ Oscar-nominated Poor Things, another Frankenstein-esque horror comedy with a more art house flavor than Lisa Frankenstein, which in its 10th week this frame managed to bring in an estimated $1.125 million on only 1300 screens.
Other Notable Performances
Sony Pictures promoted an enhanced Anyone But You: The Valentine Encore release by adding a special intro from stars Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell and some bonus content after the end credits. The plan to draw audiences back in for some pre-Valentine’s Day date nights didn’t give the movie much of a boost in its 8th weekend, dropping 22% with $2.7 million despite adding 186 theaters. However, the film held its place at #7 behind Universal’s Migration at #6 with $3.02 million. This brings the Anyone But You domestic total to $80.124 million and $90 million overseas for a worldwide cume of $170 million, an overall amazing performance for a mid-range romantic comedy in this era.
Despite a 47% drop, the Fathom Events release of The Chosen Season 4: Episodes 1-3 took in an additional $3,153,495 to bring its domestic total to $12,586,806. This was enough to see it only drop two places to #4 this week, slightly ahead of Wonka at #5 with $3.125 million. Expect it to run even with or slightly past the 2022 Fathom release of The Chosen Season 3: Episodes 1 & 2, which ended its three-week run at $14.5 million.
Sunday’s Studio Weekend Estimates:
| Title | Weekend Estimate | % Change | Locations | Location Change | PSA | Domestic Total | Week | Distributor |
| Argylle | $6,500,000 | -63% | 3,605 | n/c | $1,803 | $28,814,000 | 2 | Universal |
| Lisa Frankenstein | $3,800,000 | 3,144 | $1,209 | $3,800,000 | 1 | Focus Features | ||
| The Beekeeper | $3,469,404 | -34% | 3,057 | -220 | $1,135 | $54,734,256 | 5 | Amazon MGM |
| The Chosen: Season 4 Episodes 1-3 | $3,153,495 | -47% | 1,952 | -329 | $1,616 | $12,586,806 | 2 | Fathom Events |
| Wonka | $3,125,000 | -33% | 2,764 | -137 | $1,131 | $205,252,000 | 9 | Warner Bros. |
| Anyone But You | $2,700,000 | -22% | 2,805 | 186 | $963 | $80,124,000 | 8 | Sony Pictures |
| American Fiction | $1,328,948 | -45% | 1,462 | -440 | $909 | $17,369,430 | 9 | Amazon MGM |
| Poor Things | $1,125,000 | -48% | 1,300 | -650 | $865 | $30,276,449 | 10 | Searchlight |
| Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom | $1,075,000 | -45% | 1,363 | -379 | $789 | $122,327,000 | 8 | Warner Bros. |
| Out of Darkness | $1,004,855 | 897 | $1,120 | $1,004,855 | 1 | Bleecker Street | ||
| Night Swim | $870,000 | -41% | 1,362 | -338 | $639 | $30,013,000 | 6 | Universal |
| The Zone of Interest | $773,109 | -32% | 598 | 4 | $1,293 | $6,000,457 | 9 | A24 |
| The Boys in the Boat | $724,434 | -47% | 1,107 | -419 | $654 | $50,926,125 | 7 | Amazon MGM |
| Turning Red | $535,000 | 1,560 | $343 | $535,000 | 1 | Walt Disney | ||
| The Iron Claw | $345,483 | -46% | 425 | -209 | $813 | $35,302,251 | 8 | A24 |
| Origin | $300,000 | -56% | 348 | -283 | $862 | $4,157,256 | 10 | Neon |
| The Boy and the Heron | $236,141 | -47% | 265 | -129 | $891 | $45,387,887 | 10 | GKIDS |
| The Taste of Things | $126,015 | 3 | $42,005 | $126,015 | 14 | IFC Films | ||
| Trolls Band Together | $110,000 | -48% | 221 | -72 | $498 | $102,663,480 | 13 | Universal |
| All of Us Strangers | $109,000 | -53% | 95 | -55 | $1,147 | $3,751,696 | 8 | Searchlight |
| Perfect Days | $100,237 | 5 | $20,047 | $180,066 | 14 | Neon | ||
| The Book of Clarence | $83,000 | -61% | 190 | -41 | $437 | $6,072,000 | 5 | Sony Pictures |
| The Holdovers | $65,000 | -64% | 270 | -292 | $241 | $19,924,035 | 16 | Focus Features |
| I.S.S. | $56,035 | -82% | 217 | -597 | $258 | $6,546,978 | 4 | Bleecker Street |
| Oppenheimer | $56,000 | -74% | 226 | -353 | $248 | $328,899,320 | 30 | Universal |
| Wish | $44,000 | -49% | 105 | -25 | $419 | $63,690,254 | 12 | Walt Disney |
| The Sweet East | $34,016 | 2.21 | 34 | 30 | $1,000 | $227,985 | 11 | Utopia |
| Anselm | $20,250 | -27% | 11 | 2 | $1,841 | $444,045 | 10 | Janus Films |
| Killers of the Flower Moon | $16,000 | -66% | 144 | -142 | $111 | $67,815,000 | 17 | Paramount |
| Ennio | $7,434 | 1 | $7,434 | $7,434 | 1 | Music Box Films | ||
| Drift | $6,000 | 1 | $6,000 | $6,000 | 1 | Utopia |
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