In the domestic box office, “Barbie” is still dominating with approx. $53 million for its 3rd weekend. Its domestic total is now approx. $460 million which makes it #2 for 2023 so far and some people are predicting that it will make it to #1 but I think that will be a hard trek if it does. It needs another $115 million to catch up to “Super Mario Bros” $575 million domestic and judging by its 43% decline this weekend and last weekend, it will take at least 2 more weeks to make that much. Next weekend doesn’t have much competition except for the vampire story “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” but if it keeps its 43% decline next weekend it will make approx. $60-65 in the next 7 days. Then it needs to make another $60-65 million the following 7 days when it’s up against another big Warner Bros release “Blue Beetle”. Most people think “Blue Beetle” will be the movie to knock “Barbie” out of the #1 spot.
Things weren’t so good for “Oppenheimer” which was in 3 movie race for #2 this past weekend. “Meg 2: The Trench” was the winner of the race taking the #2 domestic box office spot for the weekend with approx. $30 million. “Oppenheimer” was #3 with $29.1 million. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” was #4 with $28 million although that movie opened last Wednesday and was the #2 movie at the box office on its opening day last Wednesday. Its total domestic box office is at $43 million. There’s some good news for “Oppenheimer” since many of the movie theaters playing it in 70mm IMAX are going to continue to play it for a 4th weekend (the two theaters in the Los Angeles area still playing it this coming weekend). The film showings of “Oppenheimer” are the theaters that are still selling a lot of tickets (although someone told me a 70mm IMAX screening in the middle of the week last week wasn’t even half full).
One more bit of good news about the box office. Thanks to the record-breaking July, the total domestic box office for 2023 so far is now passing $6 billion which is 22% over the total domestic box office for the first week of August in 2023. However, last year had the mammoth “Avatar: The Way of Water” (which is so big it’s the #6 on the domestic box office for 2023 so far – it made $283 million in 2023). I’m not sure if there will be a mammoth box office movie at the end of this year like there was the last 2 years (in Dec 2021 it was “Spider-Man No Way Home”). As of right now, “Avatar: The Way of Water” is the #7 and “Spider-Man No Way Home” is the #3 on the ALL-TIME domestic box office charts. “Super Mario Bros” is #14 and “Barbie” is #24.
Also speaking of the domestic box office, thanks to “Indiana Jones”, “Mission Impossible”, “Oppenheimer”, and “Barbie” July 2023 was the 2nd highest domestic box office for July EVER with a total of $1.37 BILLION. It was 20% higher than last July and 6% higher than the pre-pandemic 2019. The only July that had a higher domestic total was 2011 with $1.39 Billion.
Internationally, Barbie is still going strong too. It’s now the 2nd movie on the worldwide 2023 box office charts that has passed $1 billion worldwide (they don’t count “Avatar: The Way of Water” which opened in Dec 2022 in the US although it opened in several international countries this year). “Barbie” now has a worldwide gross of $1.033 BILLION. However – again – it will have a hard time catching up to “The Super Mario Bros” $1.353 billion. It’s about $200 million behind “Super Mario Bros” in international box office and the new movies are already beating “Barbie” in some countries. “Meg 2: The Trench” made a total of $115 million in foreign countries. It was even #1 in China – “Barbie” was not #1 when it opened in China.
Another record was Disney was the first studio to pass $4 billion worldwide this year thanks to “Little Mermaid”, “Elemental”, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”, the 2023 portion of “Avatar: The Way of Water”, and other releases.
By the way, “Super Mario Bros” is still doing OK in international countries. It added approx. another $1 million to its total this past weekend.
Finally, the WGA and AMPTP went back to the bargaining table last Friday afternoon. However, it seems like things did not go well. The studios are pushing for “everyone to get back to work” while the writers guild is standing firm on all their requests. Another meeting hasn’t been scheduled so it looks like the strikes are going to go on a lot longer.
Warner Bros decided to put a positive spin on the recent strikes. At an earnings call last week, they claimed that the strikes have saved them money: “We estimate were in the low $100M million range during the quarter” since many movie and TV productions have stopped due to the strikes. They made no mention about shuffling release schedules due to the strikes but they said that they expect the strikes to end next month: “modeling assumes early return to work date in early September.” However, they also said that if the strikes go longer they may save even more money: “Should the strikes run until the end of the year, I would expect several hundred millions in incremental upside to our free cash flow guidance…”.
Of course, they also bragged about the recent worldwide success of “Barbie”. They also mentioned that “Barbie” will be on the MAX streaming platform “in the fall”.
I was wondering why my friend said the Dolby Atmos track of “Oppenheimer” is “completely useless”. Then I read that Christopher Nolan doesn’t like to dub dialogue for his movies. That’s why some of the dialogue in the movie is somewhat difficult to hear – even in Dolby Atmos (I’m told). Although some people complained about the audio in the movie, the director prefers to keep the actors choice when he films the scene. This is the same director who has said it’s best to see movies with the best “sound and picture” on film in movie theaters. Sounds to me like some people would prefer to watch it at home so they can turn on the captions if they want.
Little bit of humor…..
Come to think of it, there have been a few characters named “Hawkeye” in movies.
Daniel Day Lewis in “Last of the Mohicans” (top), Jeremy Renner in the “Avengers” movies and TV shows (middle), and Donald Sutherland in “M.A.S.H.” – later played by Alan Alda on the TV show of the same name based on the movie (bottom).
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 