Clifford isn't big or red enough to stop Eternals at the weekend box office

Is this the end of Marvel’s stranglehold on the domestic box office? Can no one save Mickey Mouse’s once-undeniable money-printing machine? Will superhero movies soon be replaced by restrained, grown-up dramas as the most popular and profitable genre in American cinemas?

Probably no, to all of that, but Chloé Zhao’s Eternals did suffer a rather telling dip at the box office this weekend. It landed in the top spot, which was predictable (given the competition), but it fell more than 60 percent from last weekend and made only $27 million. That brings it to $118 million after two weeks, which is more than $10 million short of where Black Widow was after two weeks this summer—and Black Widow was available to rent on Disney+, while Eternals is only in theaters.

That does not bode especially well for Eternals’ future chances at the box office, given the way everything has fallen pretty hard during this pandemic era, and it means that there’s really no chance it will match the high box office bar set by Shang-Chi (now available on Disney+ and sitting at $224 million after 11 weeks).

Second place went to one of this weekend’s new movies, Clifford The Big Red Dog, which debuted at only $16 million. After that is Dune, which could crack $100 million total next weekend (not bad for a movie on HBO Max), and after that is No Time To Die ($4 million this weekend, a total of $150 million after six weeks).

Venom: Let There Be Carnage finally achieved the goal we’ve been predicting it would hit for a month, with its own $4 million take making it the second movie to cross $200 million at the U.S. box office since COVID. Pop the slimy alien champagne! After Venom is Ron’s Gone Wrong, then The French Dispatch (which is still expanding its rollout but is making less money every week anyway).

Then we have the other new movie, Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. It made $1.8 million on a pretty limited rollout (only 580 screens, versus Eternals’ 4,090), but its per-screen average of $3,103 isn’t anything to write home to Northern Ireland about (sorry, Kenneth). Then we have Spencer, Antlers, and (somehow, two weeks into November) Halloween Kills, with Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho landing at the bottom of the top 10 with less than $1 million.

As usual, you can see more detailed numbers at Box Office Mojo, and you can see the top 10 in a more digestible list format below this if you didn’t read all of these paragraphs.

• Eternals
• Clifford The Big Red Dog
• Dune
• No Time To Die
• Venom: Let There Be Carnage
• Ron’s Gone Wrong
• The French Dispatch
• Belfast
• Spencer
• Antlers
• Halloween Kills
• Last Night In Soho