Box Office: 'Captain America 4' Tops Inexcusably Empty Pre-Oscars Friday

If audiences still showed up for “just a movie" studio programmers, theaters wouldn’t panic when the MCU sequel kinda-sorta tanked or a horror title didn’t overperform.

Today’s “no news is bad news” Friday box office report…

• Captain America: Brave New World is (optimistically) legging out closer to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness than Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

• Last Breath and My Dead Friend Zoe are relatively small-scale openers, but the Briarcliff-distributed PTSD dramedy is worth your time and your money.

• The Monkey is the only non-MCU holdover to top even $1 million yesterday.

• At least the kid-focused flicks like Ne Zha 2, Mufasa, Paddington in Peru, Dogman and (eventually) Snow White and Minecraft are benefiting from the vacuum.