Box Office: Reagan Nabs $9 Million As 'Deadpool & Wolverine' Wins Labor Day

'Inside Out 2' passed 'The Lion King' worldwide as 'Despicable Me 4' topped $900 million while both 'Alien Romulus' and 'It Ends with Us' crossed $280 million globally.

I made a slight goof on my 4,000-word summer movie box office wrap-up yesterday, in the first paragraph, no less. I wrote that last year’s Labor Day weekend coincided with National Cinema Day and the opening weekend of Sony’s Gran Turismo. However, while those events did occur in late August of 2023, the “end of summer holiday” was a week later, a frame that saw The Equalizer 3 kick righteous ass (as Denzel Washington always does) with a $42 million Fri-Mon launch. The last three months have been healthy and consistently crowded enough that I don’t even care that the previous two weekends have been comparatively light. Sony could have kept Kraven the Hunter on Labor Day weekend as intended. However, it’s been a solid summer, and Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice will pull Pennywise-level grosses next weekend anyway.

Reagan was the top new release. Starring a Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue of famous performers who dabble in faith-based or conservative mainstream cinema (Dennis Quaid, Penelope Anne Miller, Jon Voight, Kevin Sorbo, Robert Davi, etc.), the $25 million biopic is the first from Showbiz Direct. Kevin Mitchell’s distribution upstart purports to offer non-tentpoles between the studio’s various biggies. Twas the goal of many newbies in the late 2000s/early 2010s (Open Road, STX, Bleeker Street, Clarious Entertainment, etc.), but most struggled or crumbled as audiences stopped showing up to “just a movie” flicks. By 2020’s standards, a low(er) profile political/presidential drama grossing $9 million over the holiday is “not a bad start.” 16 years ago, Oliver Stone’s W. — with far more free media attention and buzz — opened with $10 million and legged to $25 million domestic.

Blumhouse flick’s AfrAId, released by Sony instead of Universal (amusing as it was somewhat similar in structure and scale to Blumhouse and Universal’s Night Swim), earned $3.7 million Fri-Sun and $4.48 million over its Fri-Mon debut. That’s unsurprising, considering the poor reviews (23% on Rotten Tomatoes) and poor buzz (a C+ from CinemaScore). Chris Weltz’s thriller debuts years after the better and comparatively prescient likes of Ron Gone Wrong and M3GAN. The 76 minutes (plus credits) flick offers a halfway engrossing “convenience versus liberty” drama (not unlike The Circle, I found myself unappalled by the first-half cautionary events) before being completely unable to justify the almost random thriller/horror elements that take over in the final act. Of note (quality notwithstanding), Slingshot, 1992, City of Dreams and You Gotta Believe earned $4 million combined in 750-875 theaters.