saidi’s take – 5/13/2025

Hello everyone,

BOX OFFICE: Slow weekend at the movie theaters.  Partly because people were busy with Mothers Day and partly because the biggest release was Lionsgate’s action movie “Shadow Force” which was #6 with only $2.1 million.  The #1 movie “Thunderbolts*” went down approx. 57% to $32 million.  #2 was “Sinners” which went down approx. 33% to $22 million although it added about 155 screens.  “Sinners” is now at $215 million total at the domestic box office which makes it the biggest original movie – not based on a true story/book/comic/etc and not a sequel/prequel/reboot/remake/spinoff/etc – since 2016s “The Secret Life of Pets”.  The biggest new opening was the independent release “Clown in a Cornfield” which was #5 with $3.6 million (just above “Shadow Force”).  It’ll be interesting to see if “Sinners” retakes the #1 spot next weekend when it will return to some 70mm IMAX screens. 

The total domestic box office for the weekend is down 42% from the previous weekend with a total of $83.7 million.

WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE: The worldwide total of both “Thunderbolts*” and “Sinners” is now approaching $300 million.  “Sinners” is a little bit ahead with $$284 million while “Thunderbolts*” is at $273 million.  The big difference is that “Sinners” has only made $69 million total in foreign countries – about 25% of its worldwide total – while “Thunderbolts*” has made $143 million in foreign countries – about $15 million more than its domestic total.  Meanwhile, “A Minecraft Movie” has made more than both of those movies combined just passing $909 million.  Sony’s upcoming “Karate Kid Legends” opened in a few international countries this past weekend making a decent $5.7 million.

OTHER NEWS:

Hollywood studios and unions responded to Donald Trump’s tariffs talks last week by penning a letter to the president asking for expanded tax incentives – including a possible NATIONAL film tax rebate – instead of tariffs.

LITTLE BIT OF HUMOR:

Apparently “New Avengers” lasted only a day or two…

1 or 2 days after they changed the building sized billboard of “Thunderbolts*” to “New Avengers” they decided to change it again having Stitch of the upcoming live action “Lilo and Stitch” break through the poster.