'Argyll' and 'Lisa Frankenstein'
Peter Mountain / © Universal Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection; Focus Features / Courtesy Everett Collection
The Super Bowl took a beating at the domestic box office this weekend due to Sunday's showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers in Las Vegas and the ongoing winter slowdown for major Hollywood studio titles, with weekend revenue falling.
According to ComScore, combined ticket sales were estimated at $40 million, the worst showing for a Super Bowl weekend in more than three decades outside of 2021, when many theaters were still closed due to the Covid-19 crisis. Revenue in 2021 is $7.7 million.
Per ComScore, the last time revenue was low was in the mid-to-late 80s.
There's an upside: Hollywood studios don't care much about weekend grosses. Instead, many are preparing to drop splashy — and expensive — new locations for their movies.
Back to the box office. This year, Matthew Vaughn's big budget hit, For Archie, which took in $6.5 million over the Super Bowl weekend to take the No. 1 spot, also one of the lowest-grossing acts in a weekend after falling 63 percent from its opening weekend. According to Apple Original Films and distribution partner Universal, the film's domestic total is $28.1 million.
Horror-comedy from Focus Features Lisa Frankenstein It opened in second place with $3.8 million. Focus chose to release the specialty film nationwide, as opposed to a cross-platform release, hoping it would serve as counter-programming to women who weren't too caught up in Super Bowl mania. However, there's a new twist this year: Taylor Swift is responsible for an increase in football viewership among women and girls (her boyfriend is Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce, and he's expected at Sunday's game).
“This year unfortunately marks a low drop for the football-centric weekend and with only one new wide-release movie hitting theaters and a lack of market momentum, the industry must now look to the post-game era to get back on track,” says ComScore Chief Box Office Analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
Lisa Frankenstein, a twist on the classic horror story that sees a young woman piece together a corpse and bring him back to life, earned a CinemaScore of B. More than 70 percent of ticket buyers, many of whom are women, are under the age of 35.
holders Beekeeper, Wonka And Migration Top five. Searchlight's multi-Oscar contender at the special box office the poor Crossed $80 million worldwide, including $30.3 million domestically.
Historically, if a studio wants to take on risk, it has to make money at the box office despite the Super Bowl. The best Super Bowl openings over the years are included Hannah Montana/Miley Kreuz: The Best of Both Worlds Concert, which started in 2008 at a record $31 million, not adjusted for inflation. The overall gross for that weekend reached $128 million, which is still a record. Since 2006 or 17 years, revenue has exceeded $100 million only a handful of times.
In 2022 and 2023, Super Bowl weekend brought in about $54 million. Death on the Nile And Magic Mike's Last Dance (Again, counterprogramming).
Elsewhere, Amazon MGM Studios' Beekeeper 3rd place with $54.7 million, another $3.5 million, followed by Fathom's Faithful Feeling Selected: Season 4 Episodes 1-3 $3.2 million in its second weekend and a total of $6 million and Warner Bros.' Wonka — the Christmas gift that keeps on giving — $3.1 million for a domestic total of $205 million.
Fathom carries Chosen It will do the same with episodes 4-6 and 7-8 (each segment playing for two weeks) over the next four weeks, exclusively in theaters before its digital debut.
