1. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Warner Bros. | NEW
$110M Domestic Opening Weekend
$145.4M Global Cume
After 36 years of on-and-off development, director Tim Burton’s sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has arrived with a bang, scoring an estimated $110M debut on 4,575 screens for a $24,044 per screen average. That aligns with our lower-end expectations, which quickly rose well above its original tracking of $60 – $80M to accommodate an upswing in showtimes and social media searches. This stellar domestic opening represents the second-highest ever for September after 2017’s IT ($123.4M on 4103 screens, also a Warner Bros. release) as well as the biggest PG-13 September debut of all time. It also pushed the overall box office 40.6% ahead of last year when WB’s The Nun II ruled the roost. The generation-spanning audiences for the new Beetlejuice saw kids and adults dressing up for showings, turning it into an event. Here’s how the 3-Day looked, with a +45% increase over the Friday, excluding $13M in previews…
- Friday – $41.8M
- Saturday – $41.8M
- Sunday – $26.4M
While it wasn’t a slam dunk critically, it earned 77% “Certified Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes, an 82% audience score, and a “B+” CinemaScore. That slight reservation in the overall response might mean a sharp-ish drop-off in week 2, but there’s no major competition until Transformers One on September 20, and it should easily earn its way into the Top 10 for 2024 by next weekend.
If Jenna Ortega’s star status had not already been solidified after two hit Scream entries and Netflix’s Wednesday series, it certainly is now. While Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder were essential nostalgia holdovers from the first movie, Ortega sold this new film to the under-25’s and is emerging as Tim Burton’s new muse ala Johnny Depp. She is likely responsible for the best PostTrak scores, with 24% of the audience (the under 25’s) giving the film an “A-,” and more specifically, females under 25 (15% of the audience) giving the movie an “A” score. According to Deadline, females represented 59% of the overall audience (62% female for the kid demo), so it was smart to emphasize the three generations of women (Ortega, Ryder, Catherine O’Hara) at the heart of the movie, plus Monica Bellucci as the main villain. General Audience PostTrak score was 4 out of 5 stars, with parents giving the film 5 out of 5, while kids gave it 4½ stars.
Here’s how demographics looked:
- 52% Caucasian
- 31% Hispanic
- 10% African-American
- 3% Asian
- 4% Native-American/Other
These were the Top 10 locations, with Los Angeles, New York, and Dallas the Top 3 markets:
- 1. AMC Burbank Los Angeles
- 2. AMC Universal Citywalk Los Angeles
- 3. Santikos Casa Blanca San Antonio
- 4. Regal Riverpark Fresno
- 5. AMC Disney Springs Orlando
- 6. AMC Grove Los Angeles
- 7. AMC Lincoln Square New York
- 8. Cinemark Rialto Los Angeles
- 9. Harkins Estrella Falls Phoenix
- 10. Harkins Mountain Grove Los Angeles
Let’s see how this compares to some of Burton’s biggest ever domestic openings, unadjusted…
- Alice in Wonderland (2010) – $116.1M opening/$334.1M cume
- Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) – $110M opening
- Planet of the Apes (2001) – $68.5M opening/$180M cume
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) – $56.1M opening/$206.4M cume
- Dumbo (2019) – $45.9M opening/$114.7M cume
- Batman Returns (1992) – $45.6M opening/$162.8M cume
- Batman (1989) – $40.4M opening/$251.1M cume
Internationally, the sequel took in an additional $35.4M from 69 territories for a global cume of $145.4M. The top 3 foreign markets were the UK ($9.6M), Mexico ($6.5M), and Australia ($2.6M), while premium formats represented 33% of weekend business on this title, including $11M from global IMAX screens ($9.3M from 409 domestic screens, the best September opening ever for the format).
Although Burton’s filmography is chock-a-block with remakes and re-imaginings, this is only his second direct sequel to a movie he directed after Batman Returns. While that batquel was criticized for taking too sharp a turn away from superheroics into Burton’s more esoteric leanings, the Beetlejuice sequel clearly saw the filmmaker going to great pains to recreate the magic of the first one while adding new character dimensions and surprises. That meant not only tonal similarities but also making sure the obnoxious Beetlejuice character did not overstay his welcome with too much screen time. It is that rare sequel that felt like a continuation and not a remake of the original while still giving audiences what they wanted.
10. The Front Room
A24 | NEW
$1.66M Domestic Opening Weekend
A24’s latest stab at elevated horror has struck out hard as The Front Room eked out a paltry $1,663,954 million over its debut weekend on 2095 screens for a PSA of $794 to land all the way at #10. This is a far cry from our forecast that it could feasibly place at #3 (Reagan took that honor with $5.2M in its second frame). It was also an obvious attempt by A24 to front-load a movie on as many screens as possible, as opposed to platforming the way they have with critical darlings like I Saw the TV Glow, which has earned $5M without ever going above 500 screens. The Front Room marks the second frame in a row where a prominent new wide-release horror film from a boutique label has cratered after Blumhouse’s Afraid whiffed with $3.6M on 3003 screens over the Labor Day weekend.
Here’s how the 3-Day looked:
- Friday – $611,740 thousand
- Saturday – $601,265 thousand
- Sunday – $450,949 thousand
So what kept the normally dependable horror audience away from The Front Room in droves? It earned a 51% critical from Rotten Tomatoes after reviews were withheld until the last minute. Then the audience score wound up at 39%, and CinemaScore was a “C-” (both metrics worse than Afraid), meaning the film really did not work for its target demo. Unlike Afraid, The Front Room carried an R-rating and had a cast built entirely around older actors, which meant younger teens weren’t coming.
Leading lady Brandy, a more prominent recording artist, had not headlined a theatrical movie since Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor in 2013. She holds some horror pedigree as a final girl in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer... which was released 26-years ago. Overall it seems like a re-heated star and uncomfortable oedipal themes combined with poor word-of-mouth sank what could have been solid adult counter-programming to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Other Notable Performances
20th Century Studios’ hit sci-fi horror prequel/sequel Alien: Romulus rounded up $3.9M as it dropped -58% and two places to #4 for a $97.1M domestic cume (should cross $100M in a few days, max). Meanwhile, globally, it crossed the $300M landmark (the 4th Walt Disney Studios movie in 2024 to do so), with an estimated $314.4M global cume. The film opened in Japan, its final international market, where it was the #1 non-local film (#2 overall) with an estimated $2.3M 3-day take. It also crossed $100M in China ($100.6M), though it still has a ways to go before hitting the heights of Prometheus‘ $402.4M global total. Alien: Romulus is currently the 14th highest global grosser of 2024 behind Zhang Yimou’s Chinese comedy-drama Article 20 ($337.5M).
Keeping up with the xenomorphs, Sony’s It Ends With Us also crossed the $300M milestone globally this weekend as it took in $10.8 million internationally for an overseas cume of $168M and a global cume of $309.4M. It also banked $3.75M domestically to maintain the #5 spot, with a $141.3M domestic cume (enough to bump A Quiet Place: Day One to become the #10 highest grosser of 2024). Starring Blake Lively, It Ends With Us is the highest-grossing romantic drama WW since 2018’s A Star Is Born while also surpassing lifetimes of other recent female-leaning dramas, The Fault In Our Stars, Crazy Rich Asians, Anyone But You, Little Women, and Me Before You.
Sunday’s Studio Weekend Estimates | Weekend 36 – 2024
Total 3-Day Domestic Estimates: $148,838,698M | (+40.6% vs 2023)
| Title | Weekend Estimate | % Change | Locations | Location Change | PSA | Domestic Total | Week | Distributor |
| Beetlejuice Beetlejuice | $110,000,000 | 4,575 | $24,044 | $110,000,000 | 1 | Warner Bros. | ||
| Deadpool & Wolverine | $7,200,000 | -53% | 3,400 | -230 | $2,118 | $614,037,740 | 7 | Walt Disney |
| Reagan | $5,231,440 | -32% | 2,770 | 16 | $1,889 | $18,531,480 | 2 | ShowBiz Direct |
| Alien: Romulus | $3,910,000 | -58% | 2,560 | -560 | $1,527 | $97,199,286 | 4 | 20th Century… |
| It Ends With Us | $3,750,000 | -49% | 2,850 | -701 | $1,316 | $141,367,000 | 5 | Sony Pictures |
| The Forge | $2,935,000 | -36% | 1,710 | -211 | $1,716 | $20,757,000 | 3 | Sony Pictures |
| Twisters | $2,250,000 | -71% | 2,252 | -753 | $999 | $264,602,000 | 8 | Universal |
| Blink Twice | $2,114,769 | -56% | 1,806 | -1,261 | $1,171 | $20,291,745 | 3 | Amazon MGM S… |
| Despicable Me 4 | $1,800,000 | -56% | 1,919 | -779 | $938 | $357,872,000 | 10 | Universal |
| The Front Room | $1,663,954 | 2,095 | $794 | $1,663,954 | 1 | A24 | ||
| Trap | $1,340,000 | 72% | 341 | -391 | $3,930 | $41,601,616 | 6 | Warner Bros. |
| Afraid | $1,075,000 | -71% | 3,003 | n/c | $358 | $6,273,000 | 2 | Sony Pictures |
| Inside Out 2 | $743,000 | -73% | 960 | -1,700 | $774 | $651,931,031 | 13 | Walt Disney |
| $1,992 | $450,000 | -68% | 875 | n/c | $514 | $2,587,463 | 2 | Lionsgate |
| Dìdi (弟弟) | $151,000 | -53% | 113 | -121 | $1,336 | $4,553,000 | 7 | Focus Features |
| The Crow | $127,000 | -93% | 296 | -2,456 | $429 | $9,210,313 | 3 | Lionsgate |
| Strange Darling | $120,196 | -78% | 130 | -670 | $925 | $2,883,738 | 3 | Magenta Ligh… |
| Sing Sing | $105,672 | -51% | 92 | -99 | $1,149 | $2,569,992 | 9 | A24 |
| Red Rooms | $40,295 | 50 | $806 | $40,295 | 1 | Utopia | ||
| Longlegs | $36,280 | -80% | 55 | -113 | $660 | $74,003,708 | 9 | Neon |
| Shaun of the Dead | $31,000 | -95% | 202 | 69 | $153 | $14,311,000 | 1,042 | Focus Features |
| Tokyo Cowboy | $29,019 | 49% | 2 | n/c | $14,510 | $55,179 | 2 | Purdie Distr… |
| Good One | $19,188 | -75% | 59 | -34 | $325 | $304,543 | 5 | Metrograph P… |
| Seeking Mavis Beacon | $15,168 | 102% | 4 | 3 | $3,792 | $24,801 | Neon |
Share this post