Well, the box office has hit a new low for the year. This was the weakest weekend of 2023, with The Nun II topping the charts with a single-digit gross — $8.4 million.
It just narrowly nudged past Expendables 4 (a.k.a. Expend4bles) which came in second with $8.3M. That’s the lowest opening for any movie in this franchise and continues the trend of audiences turning their backs on long-running franchises that we saw this summer with the underperformances of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Fast X, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, all of DC’s output, and more.
Expendables 4 is only getting middling reactions from viewers with a B- CinemaScore and 2½ stars, 64% positive from PostTrack, and 71% positive via Rotten Tomatoes. Critics generally hated it, with a 15% rating on RT.
Sylvester Stallone returns and is joined by Jason Statham, 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Randy Couture, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, and Andy Garcia. This type of movie tends to do better outside of the U.S. and Canada, so it remains to be seen whether or not the foreign market will salvage The Expendables 4‘s box office performance.
There wasn’t much change in the rest of the chart with A Haunting in Venice landing at #3, The Equalizer 3 at #4, and Barbie at #5.
Here are the numbers:
- The Nun II (New Line) – 3-day $8.4M/ Total $69.2M/ Wk 3
- Expendables 4 (Lionsgate) – 3-day $8.3M/ Wk 1
- A Haunting in Venice (Disney) – 3-day $6.3M/ Total $25.3M/ Wk 2
- The Equalizer 3 (Sony) – 3-day $4.72M/ Total: $81.2M / Wk 4
- Barbie (Warner Bros.) – 3-day $3.2M/ Total $630.45M/ Wk 10
With Halloween approaching, expect more horror fare to hit screens. Next week sees the release of Saw X. With this being a franchise picture, will this suffer the same fate as Expendables 4?
Also opening is the sci-fi movie The Creator. It’s getting excellent buzz in terms of its quality but doesn’t seem to be generating a lot of interest among the general public. This one isn’t expected to open very highly.
Perhaps there will be a big upset in the form of Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie. There hasn’t been a big kids movie in a while. Could this actually top the charts?
Will you be checking anything out at the box office?
