'Super-Pets' are best in box-office show, leading with $23M opening
DC League of Super-Pets (NASDAQ:WBD) was best in show at the box office over the weekend, though with a total that shows that calmer weeks are ahead in theaters as the nation prepares to go back to school.
The animated Warner Bros. entry drew $23M to log the best ticket sales domestically, displacing last week's champ Nope (NASDAQ:CMCSA), which fell off 58% (not atypical for horror films) to land at $18.5M.
And while it did end up in the top spot, a solid $23M instead of earlier-summer weekend-leading totals of $50M means the fairly expensive Super-Pets may have further to go to turn a profit for Warner Bros. (WBD).
Nope's $18.5M brings it to $80.6M cumulative, dampening hopes that it would outpace the more successful Us from director Jordan Peele. But Nope has yet to see its international launch, coming in a couple of weeks.
The No. 3 spot went to Thor: Love and Thunder (DIS), which added $13.1M to a cumulative total that has now surpassed $301.5M (past $662M worldwide), and the No. 4 spot was Minions: The Rise of Gru (CMCSA), adding $10.9M to a total of $320.4M domestic and $701.4M worldwide.
Meanwhile, still hanging in the top 5 after 10 weeks of release is Top Gun: Maverick (NASDAQ:PARA) (PARAA), which pulled $8.2M to stretch across the $650M cumulative mark. The year's biggest sensation has surpassed $1.32B worldwide, and it's now just a matter of days away from moving up on the all-time domestic grosses chart, from No. 9 now past Jurassic World ($653.4M cumulative), and likely past current No. 7 Titanic ($659.4M).
Still hoping to eke out some more revenues after July became the first $1B-plus revenue month at the movies since December 2019 are the theater owners, generally higher on Monday: AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) +3.7%; Cineworld (OTCPK:CNNWF) +5%; Cinemark (CNK) -0.7%; (IMAX) +0.4%; Marcus (MCS) +0.2%; Reading International (RDI) -1.7%; Cineplex (OTCPK:CPXGF) +4.3%; National CineMedia (NCMI) +5.1%.