Box Office: ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Tops $150M While ‘Croods 2’ Nears $145M

In box office news not related to The Little Things, Wonder Woman 1984 topped $150 million worldwide this weekend. The $200 million Patty Jenkins-directed superhero sequel, which damn-well would have grossed $700-$900 million worldwide had it opened in a normal theatrical environment, grossed another $1.3 million in its sixth weekend of domestic release, a solid drop of just 18.75% for a new domestic cume of $39.2 million. For what it’s worth, the Gal Gadot/Chris Pine flick has now A) surpassed the $38 million domestic opening day of the first Wonder Woman and B) surpassed the mere 2.33x weekend-to-final multiplier of Star Trek: Nemesis which stood as a benchmark for unusually frontloaded Christmas season releases after earning $43 million from an $18 million debut in December of 2002. It has earned $152 million worldwide thus far.

Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s The Croods: A New Age continues to hold its own as a rare “theatrical hit.” The $65 million sequel earned another $1.84 million (+2%) for a $43.95 million domestic cume despite remaining near or at the top of most VOD charts. As far as speculating about PVOD revenues, Trolls: World Tour earned, amid saturation-level coverage and its existence as the only game in town for big new movies in the first months of quarantine, around $95 million in the first three weeks. A similar number for The Croods: A New Age over the two months amid more competition and less attention wouldn’t shock me. That would be fine for a $65 million flick that has already earned $144 million worldwide with post-theatrical windows (EST, VOD, etc.) still to come.

In terms of other Universal/Focus Features releases, all of which had debuted on PVOD 21 days into their respective theatrical releases, Tom Hanks’ News of the World has crossed $10 million domestic after six weekends in theaters. That’s pretty damn low for a crowdpleasing, big-studio Hanks western from Paul Greengrass, but at least it’s better than the $4.2 million earned by A Hologram For the King. Comcast sold the overseas distribution rights to Netflix, presumably keeping domestic rights mostly for Oscar consideration. Carey Mulligan’s Promising Young Woman has earned $4.36 million thus far, which is frankly about what it would have earned had it opened in normal times (especially if it had opened outside of awards season). If Mulligan ends up in the Oscar race, which is pretty damn likely, expect this one to stick around.

Come Play has earned more ($10 million) than the far more high profile Freaky ($8.98 million) and Let Him Go ($9.3 million). I will presume the crowdpleasing Blumhouse horror comedy has performed better on PVOD. I might guestimate that the young-skewing demographics for the Katherine Newton/Vince Vaughn body swap slasher were willing to wait until the film debuted at home in PVOD, EST or eventually VOD. Ditto the modern-day Diane Lane/Kevin Costner thriller/western, which plays to exactly the audience that will catch up with that one when it’s on Peacock right beside the first three seasons of Yellowstone. For what it’s worth, Liam Neeson’s The Marksman earned $1.25 million (-38%) in weekend three for a $7.825 million 17-day total while Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich’s video game adaptation Monster Hunter has topped $11 million domestic.