Bullet Train Races to The Top of The Box Office

The summer box office is ramping down as kids across the country are beginning to ramp up for the start of a new school year. As always, we turn to the incredible The Numbers for the latest in box office projections.

Bullet Train debuted this past weekend and grabbed the number one spot at the box office with $30.1 million in the domestic box office. Bullet Train added another $32.4 million from the international box office. This is pretty close to expectations.

A production budget of $86 million plus an estimated marketing budget of roughly $40 million means that Sony needs Bullet Train to make around $252 million at the worldwide box office in order to break even. Personally, I loved Bullet Train, so I hope it does well for Sony in the worldwide box office.

DC League of Super Pets took second place with $11.2 million at the domestic box office. This was a bit better than expectations. This brings the worldwide box office to $83.4 million. We did the math for DC League of Super Pets and the target number for Warner Bros is roughly $270 million for them to break even. It has only been two weeks, but it is looking like DC League of Super Pets has a tough road to go. This is not going to help to get David Zaslav excited for more animated movies like this one.

Nope, in its third week, elbowed Thor out of the way and took third place with $8.5 million in the domestic box office. Nope still has not released in the international box office, so all of their money is flowing from the domestic box office at this point. Nope’s total box office stands at $97.9 million. We did the math for Nope and the target number for Universal to break even is roughly $200 million. Universal better hope that the international release is strong enough to push Nope up and over the $200 million mark.

Thor: Love and Thunder dropped to fourth place in its fifth week at the box office. The latest MCU offering brought in $7.6 million at the domestic box office. This brings Thor: Love and Thunder’s worldwide box office to $698.8 million. Based on the math, Thor: Love and Thunder is almost at its break even point. The target for Thor is roughly $700 million. I know that the Chinese box office only shares 25% of its box office with Hollywood movie studios. But, that 25% is important when trying to push an expensive movie into the black.

It looks like Disney can no longer count on getting that additional money from China. At some point, Disney is going to have to start scaling back the massive production and marketing budgets for these MCU movies. General audience fatigue in the domestic box office combined with not releasing in China is going to make turning a profit on these expensive movies more difficult.

Minions: The Rise of Gru came in fifth place with $7.1 million in the domestic box office. This brings the worldwide box office to $757.8 million. Unlike Thor: Love and Thunder, Minions: The Rise of Gru only had a production budget of $80 million and an estimated marketing budget of $40 million. Therefore, Universal was already counting profits once this latest Minions movie crossed the $240 million mark in the worldwide box office. Universal has reaped some large profits this summer.

There were two new movies released in the domestic box office this past weekend. The first was Easter Sunday from Universal. Easter Sunday came in way below box office estimates of $14-19 million. Easter Sunday only opened in the domestic box office and tanked as it only brought in $5.2 million. It looks like Universal has a bomb on their hands with this film. Luckily, Universal has all of those sweet profits from Minions: Rise of Gru and Jurassic World: Dominion to salve this wound.

Luckily, the production budget was only $17 million. Throw another $6K for the marketing budget and you get a total of $23 million that Universal needs to get back in order to break even. The target for Easter Sunday is to make at least $46 million in the box office in order to break even. That is looking like a Herculean task at this point.

The second new movie that debuted was indie horror film Bodies Bodies Bodies which only released domestically and made $226,526 at the box office.

All right, that is it for this week! It looks like the summer box office battle is going to end in a rather unexciting fashion. Until next week, be good and stay safe!