Box Office: 'Demon Slayer' Tops Slow Friday As 'Drive-Away Dolls' Stalls

Hillary Swank and Alan Ritchson's 'Ordinary Angels' earned an A+ from CinemaScore

The spice wasn’t really flowing in domestic theaters, as a theatrical release of a few television episodes represented the top-earning movie on Friday. CrunchyRoll’s Demon Slayer: To the Hashira Training earned $5.5 million yesterday, including $1.8 million in Thursday previews. Akin to last year’s “put it in theaters before streaming/TV” release of Demon Slayer: To the Swordsmith Village, this 104-minute “feature” is comprised of the 35-minute season three finale and the 70-minute season four premiere. That release, ironically released on the same weekend as Michael B. Jordan’s anime-influenced Creed III, opened with $10 million and earned $16 million domestically and $56 million global. With a B+ from Cinemascore, this one will earn $11.15 million over the weekend. It’s... telling that, three years after Demon Slayer the Movie opened with $21 million alongside Mortal Kombat’s $22 million launch, theaters are still depending on these periodic anime releases to keep the doors open. Demographically-specific event films for the... uh... win? 

Bob Marley: One Love just passed $100 million worldwide as it earned another $3.71 million domestic (-50%) on its second Friday for a likely $14.1 million (-51%) second-weekend gross. Among recent musical biopics, that drop is right between Straight Outta Compton (-56% from a $60 million Fri-Sun debut) and the over/under 40% drops for Bohemian Rhapsody and Elvis. That will give Paramount’s $70 million-budgeted music biopic a $72 million domestic cume, meaning it’s well on its way to “being a hit.” It’s still a solid win for Paramount’s marketing team in terms (alongside Mean Girls) of creating awareness and interest in non-franchise films. Man, I wish I didn’t know that Gladiator 2 apparently costs (depending on who you ask) between $250 million and $310 million, but that’s a longer, more complicated conversation about strike-inflated budgets coming on top of Covid-inflated budgets. Still,  I’m officially optimistic for If (an original John Krasinski-directed, Ryan Reynolds-starring kid-friendly fantasy) opening on May 18. 

Lionsgate’s Ordinary Angels earned $2.3 million on Friday, setting the stage for a $6.22 million opening weekend. Alas, that’s well below the $13-$17 million debuts of Jesus Revolution, The Shack and I Can Only Imagine, opening closer to the under-$10 million likes of I Still Believe, American Underdog. Moreover, the Hillary Swank/ Alan Ritchson melodrama (about a struggling alcoholic who almost randomly decides to help out a grieving widower whose daughter is in need of a liver transplant) is probably the best faith-based drama of this nature since Sony and Affirm’s Heaven is For Real in April of 2014. There are issues, like how the film emphasizes income inequality and a broken health care system which stereotypical faith-based moviegoers have voted against rectifying, but I can see why it got an A+ from Cinemascore. These Veggie Tales-style Christian flicks (that’s a compliment) are often the closest thing we get to a straight-up major studio drama outside of the awards season.  

Sony’s much-maligned Madame Web earned $1.58 million on Friday, dropping “just” 63% from its previous Friday. Sure, the Dakota Johnson-starring comic book movie may be getting a little “hate-watch” business, but that’s not anywhere near enough to move the needle. We can expect a $5.71 million (-63%) weekend and a $35.2 million 12-day domestic cume. Illumination’s Migration is holding strong again, earning $660,000 (-14%) on Friday for a $3.3 million (-14%) weekend and $121 million domestic cume. It has now grossed 9.76x its $12.4 million opening weekend. That’s mid-December legs for you, where Wonka can earn $214 million domestic (and $610 million worldwide thus far) from a $39 million debut. Even the seemingly DOA Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom can end with $433 million global, and Anyone But You can race to $200 million global from a $6 million opening weekend. Maybe Apple’s pricey Argylle ($2.85 million for the weekend, $42 million total) should have opened on Christmas.  

Alas, nobody showed up for Focus Features’ Drive-Away Dolls. The Ethan Coen-directed road trip crime comedy, starring “Internet famous but general audience unknowns” Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan and Beanie Feldstein, earned $1.01 million on Friday for a likely $2.5 million opening weekend. Weirdly enough, Focus/Comcast delayed this one from last September amid the SAG-AFTRA strike and then released it this weekend with (I would argue) comparatively minimal star-centric promotion. However, this is also the kind of film audiences say they want and then ignore when they get it. See also: Focus’ Lisa Frankenstein just three weekends ago. Mea culpa, I haven’t seen Drive-Away Dolls yet as my wife is interested, so I was waiting until the weekend. If date night fails to materialize, I’ll buy a Saturday night ticket as a matter of honor. Here’s hoping they can ride the music biopic boom in May with the Marisa Abela-starring Amy Winehouse flick Back to Black. 

Amazon MGM’s The Beekeeper will earn around $2.07 million (-36%) in weekend seven to bring its domestic cume to $63.3 million as it likely passes $150 million global. Not only is that Jason Statham’s biggest solo non-Meg action movie ever in unadjusted domestic and global earnings. It’s, at least until we see how well Dune Part Two performs, the top-grossing Hollywood release of 2024. Great for Mr. Statham, who, after 25 years, seems to be more popular and respected than ever. Not great for the overall theatrical industry. Meanwhile, Tenet returned to Imax 50 theaters this weekend as a kind of promotion for Dune Part Two. Christopher Nolan’s time-inversion flick, which earned $366 million globally amid Covid-impacted circumstances in August/September of 2020, earned $190,000 on Friday for a $450,000 weekend and a strong $9,146 per-theater average. As someone who drove down to Vegas that summer for an opening night show, I hope the new Imax prints had open captions.