New Fantastic Beasts just barely beats Sonic 2 at the weekend box office
The new wizard movie knocked Sonic off of the top spot, but he might take it back
As we heard just yesterday, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore just opened to the lowest box office total of any movie in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World franchise. The film’s final-ish total (these things always change a little bit before Monday morning) ended up being only $43 million, only a little higher than last week’s winner, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, which fell nearly 60 percent down to $30 million in its second week. That was enough for the Blue Blur to crack $100 million, and if word of mouth on Dumbledore ends up being as bad as we assume it will be, Sonic 2 could theoretically bounce back. (Let’s say this is a reference to that bouncing thing that Sonic does.)
Third place, again, went to The Lost City, which had made nearly $80 million after four weeks, which is pretty solid. Fourth place went to a little film called Everything Everywhere All At Once, which has continued to grow as it expands its rollout, rising two percent this week to make $6 million. It has only made $17 million after four weeks, but that is absolutely going to go up as more people tell their friends and loved ones how great it is.
Speaking of things that are great: The offenses of Mel Gibson. Here’s what we said when he was cast in the John Wick spin-off show, which we’re still mad about.
Yes, this is the same Mel Gibson who went on an antisemitic tirade after getting pulled over for a DUI 15 years ago, threw a tantrum when he couldn’t get the budget he wanted for Braveheart, was accused of abusing ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorievas, was heard going on another racist tirade on a series of leaked tapes, and once asked Winona Ryder at a party if she was an “oven dodger.”
Father Stu, the movie Gibson made with Mark Walhberg and longtime girlfriend Rosalind Ross, made $5.7 million this Easter weekend. We’ll take it as a win for cinema in general that Everything Everywhere made more money than Father Stu, though maybe everyone’s waiting until after church today to go the problematic churchy movie? If that’s the case, may we recommend a different movie about a man who came to Earth and gave his life as penance for the sins of the world? It’s called Morbius, and it made $4.7 million this weekend (for a total of $65 million after three weeks). Is that what Morbius is about?
Woop woop, that’s the ambulance from Ambulance, driving in to $4 million this weekend. At only $15 million after two weeks, it’s surely going to be one of the least successful films of Michael Bay’s career. After that one The Batman, a movie that will be on HBO Max tomorrow, followed by Indian film K.G.F.: Chapter 2 ($2.8 million in its debut) and—oh, why the hell not?—a second Mark Wahlberg picture in Uncharted. Surely Fantastic Beasts didn’t sell out anywhere, who was going to see Uncharted after nine weeks in theaters? The other notable newbies, Dual and We’re All Going To The World’s Fair, didn’t make much money but had limited rollouts and will probably rise up the charts later.
Here’s the full list, courtesy of Box Office Mojo, which includes barely any editorializing about the stars of these movies.
- Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore
- Sonic The Hedgehog 2
- The Lost City
- Everything Everywhere All At Once
- Father Stu
- Morbius
- Ambulance
- The Batman
- KGF: Chapter 2
- Uncharted