On a slow end-of-summer weekend that has been left by the legacy studios to specialty distributors, Netflix is set to do something it has never done before with its first No. 1 at the box office, all thanks to Sony Pictures Animation’s “KPop Demon Hunters“
As the original animated action musical stands on the verge of passing “Red Notice” as the streamer’s most-watched film ever with 210 million views and counting, theatrical sources tell TheWrap that they estimate the film will gross $18-20 million from a two-day limited engagement in around 1,700 theaters. That would be enough to edge the estimated $15.6 million third weekend for Warner Bros./New Line’s “Weapons” for the top spot.
Netflix, as it has always done for the precious few films it puts in theaters like Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion,” is not reporting official numbers.
How much was left on the table for theaters from Sony’s decision to sell “KPop Demon Hunters” to Netflix for a reported $20 million profit is now the biggest “what if” thought experiment for Hollywood, and one that TheWrap explored last week. Barring an extremely effective marketing campaign, the film likely would have faced a disappointing opening weekend like all the original animated films that have hit theaters in recent years.
But despite being available on streaming for the past two months, “KPop Demon Hunters” is set to earn in just two days nearly more than the Fri.-Sun. opening weekends of “The Bad Guys 2” ($22 million) and “Elio” ($20.8 million) in a summer that is set to be the first non-pandemic summer since 1997 to not have an animated film gross more than $100 million in North America. While its streaming release aided in its rapid conquering of pop culture, “KPop Demon Hunters” could have been the film to cross that mark.
As for the rest of the charts, this weekend was about holdovers clearing various milestones. “Weapons” passed $100 million domestic after three weekends with a $116 million cume, becoming the sixth straight Warner release to pass that mark.
Disney’s “Freakier Friday” is in third with $9.2 million in its third weekend for a $70 million total. Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” takes fourth with $5.8 million as it crossed $250 million domestic this past week and nears $500 million worldwide, while “The Bad Guys 2” rounds out the top 5 with $5 million and a $66 million domestic cume.
Farther down the charts, Focus Features released the Ethan Coen dark comedy “Honey Don’t!” in 1,317 theaters, grossing $3 million. The film, which stars Margaret Qualley as a small-town investigator who looks into murders tied to a mysterious church, has been tepidly received with Rotten Tomatoes critics and audience scores of 45%.
A24 also released an English dubbed version of Chengdu Coco Cartoon’s “Ne Zha 2,” the Chinese animated film that stands as this year’s highest grossing film with more than $2 billion grossed worldwide, with almost all of that from its home country. The U.S. dub release attracted a bit of interest from curious cinephiles, grossing $1.5 million this weekend from 2,228 locations.
