Weekend Box Office: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Scores Second-Highest September Opening Ever

Hard to bet against a legacy sequel at this point. At least those in the multi-quadrant variety passed down through the generations from video and cable and beyond. Just look at Jurassic World, Top Gun: Maverick, and this summer’s Twisters. That’s 14, 36, and 28 years, respectively, between chapters, with the first two ranked in the 10 highest-grossing domestic releases ever. Now comes another one 36 years in the making, and those who were lowballing its potential are now looking at it wedged between another clown from the underworld as part of the biggest September openings of all time.

King of the Crop: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Scores Second-Highest September Opening Ever

Tim Burton’s biggest openings have always come with name recognition. Alice in Wonderland ($116.1 million), Planet of the Apes ($68.5 million), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ($56.1 million), Dumbo ($45.9 million), and, of course, his Batman films, which with inflation would have debuted today in the $101-103 million range each. Now, Burton puts another film in nine digits in 2024 with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which opened to $110 million over the weekend. The original 1988 film opened to just $8 million and then grossed over nine times that opening to over $73 million. What a difference a couple of decades makes. This film is unlikely to pull off that trick again, but let’s see where it could land by the end of its run.

As mentioned earlier, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice now has the second-highest opening ever in the month of September, behind Stephen King’s It ($123.4 million) and ahead of It: Chapter 2 ($91.0 million). Those two films and Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings are the only films to open this month and gross over $200 million. The first It got over $327 million. It remains to be seen if word-of-mouth will be good enough for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice to go that high, but it would be shocking if it didn’t pass Shang Chi’s $224 million. Heck, no October film ever opened to over $100 million, and only Joker, Gravity, and The Martian got higher than $224 million. Dumbo is the only film of Burton’s career to not register at least a 2.5x multiple over its opening, and even that was 2.495. So Warner Bros. should feel pretty confident that they are looking at a $250+ million winner here on the domestic side. It’s the eighth $100 million budget of Burton’s career. Add in another $34.5 million on the international side to start, and this should be up there with Alice In Wonderland and Batman amongst the biggest hits of his career.

The Top 10 and Beyond: Deadpool & Wolverine Drops to Second, Reagan Holds on to Third

Down to second place for just the second time in seven weeks is Deadpool & Wolverine. Just about all the August leftovers took a big hit over the weekend, and this was no exception, falling 54% to $7.2 million. That brings its total to $614 million, which is almost officially behind the curve of Inside Out 2, which had $613.7 million after its seventh-weekend haul of $8.6 million. So while it may not become the biggest film of 2024, the numbers are still nothing to sneeze at. It will be likely at least the 12th highest-grossing domestic release of all time, the fifth biggest MCU film, and already one of the top 25 grossing films worldwide ever. Not bad.

That’s not what critics are saying about Sean McNamara’s Reagan with its 20% rating, but the film did hang on for third place this week with $5.2 million, bringing its 10 day total to $18.5 million. That’s still not covering its $25 million budget, but it’s $18.5 million more than it made sitting for three years on the shelf, waiting for distribution.

Fourth place goes to Alien: Romulus with $4 million, also dropping 54% this week to bring its total to $97.2 million. That weekend is more in line with The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor than The Bourne Legacy, so we have to drop its estimates from the $110-115 million range to $105-110 million. Nevertheless, the film is over $314 million worldwide and is a solid hit for 20th Century Studios/Disney.

Speaking of solid hits, It Ends With Us is one of the most profitable films of the year and only added to that fact with $3.7 million this weekend. That brings its total to $141.3 million domestic and still on track to reach $150 million. It has also cleared over $309 million worldwide. Twisters falls back to seventh place with $2.2 million for a domestic total of $264.6 million and a global total over $367 million.

The Forge comes in at sixth place with $2.9 million for a decent total of $20.7 million. Not bad at all for a $5 million budget. Blink Twice came in eighth with $2.1 million, getting its total over $20 million. The Tamil action film The Greatest Of All Time made it into ninth place, also with $2.1 million and a total of $3.6 million since Wednesday. A24 would have loved to see grosses like that for The Front Room. Instead, the Brandy Norwood-fronted horror film grossed just $1.6 million in 2,095 theaters. Not even making the top 10, The Front Room represents the weakest opening for an A24 release in over 2,000 theaters, coming in below Ti West’s Pearl ($3.12 million) and Alex Garland’s Men ($3.29 million).

Finally back to the hit period on the animated front, Despicable Me 4 remained in the top 10 with $1.8 million. It is now over $929 million worldwide. Then Inside Out 2 officially passed Jurassic World with $1.672 billion to become the eighth-biggest worldwide grosser of all time.

On the Vine: Speak No Evil Hopes to Thrill Audiences

Blumhouse tries to make a little comeback after the disappointing AfrAId last week. The remake of the recent Danish (albeit in English) horror film Speak No Evil, with James McAvoy and Halt and Catch Fire co-stars Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis, hopes to lead the new releases next weekend as Beetlejuice Beetlejuice lands a second week at No. 1. Lionsgate is hoping not to have another poor showing with Dave Bautista and the assassin action of The Killer’s Game. They are screening this one for critics so that is already a step up from The Crow and Borderlands, two of the biggest bombs of the summer.

Full List of Box Office Results: September 6-8, 2024

1. 78% Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) – $110 million ($110 million total)

2. 79% Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) – $7.2 million ($614 million total)

3. 19% Reagan (2024) – $5.2 million ($18.5 million total)

4. 80% Alien: Romulus (2024) – $3.9 million ($97.2 million total)

5. 57% It Ends With Us (2024) – $3.7 million ($141.3 million total)

6. 70% The Forge (2024) – $2.9 million ($20.7 million total)

7. 75% Twisters (2024) – $2.25 million ($264.6 million total)

8. 73% Blink Twice (2024) – $2.1 million ($20.2 million total)

9. - - The Greatest of All Time (2024) – $2.1 million ($2.1 million total)

10. 56% Despicable Me 4 (2024) – $1.8 million ($357.8 million total)

Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast.

[box office figures via Box Office Mojo]

Thumbnail image by Parisa Taghizadeh/©Warner Bros.

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