'Blue Beetle' bests 'Barbie'

Hello! Welcome to The Box Office Report for the weekend of Aug. 18-20, 2023.

1. Blue Beetle

Weekend gross: $25.4M
Total domestic gross: $25.4M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA

After a four-weekend reign, Barbie no longer stands at the top of the box office. Blue Beetle, Warner Bros.’ soft launch of its new James Gunn-led cinematic universe, claimed the No. 1 spot this weekend.

Blue Beetle’s box office victory likely wouldn’t have happened in previous weekends against Barbie. A $25.4 million debut ranks between the Wonder Woman 1984’s $16.7 million opening and The Suicide Squad’s $26.2 million opening — and both of those films were pandemic era releases that were also available on HBO Max.

2. Barbie

Weekend gross: $21.5M
Total domestic gross: $567.1M
Last weekend: 1st
Percent drop: 36

Barbie finished in second place this weekend (only missing a fifth weekend at No. 1 by $4 million), but Greta Gerwig’s film has a ton to be proud of. It’s Warner Bros.’ biggest domestic box office haul, passing the $533.7 million grossed by The Dark Knight. It currently sits at No. 15 on the all-time domestic chart, less than $10 million away from passing The Super Mario Bros. Movie. And it’s made more than $1.2 billion worldwide.

3. Oppenheimer

Weekend gross: $10.6M
Total domestic gross: $285.2M
Last weekend: 2nd
Percent drop: 44

Oppenheimer should become Christopher Nolan’s biggest non-Batman hit as a director sometime Monday or Tuesday. The $292.6 million grossed by Inception will be no match for the power of this biopic.

4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Weekend gross: $8.4M
Total domestic gross: $88.1M
Last weekend: 3rd
Percent drop: 45

Over the past week, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem jumped past the domestic box office haul of every Ninja Turtles movie except 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Michael Bay’s 2014 reboot. Mutant Mayhem has a long way to go before passing either of those film’s — the original film grossed $135.3 million and the reboot grossed $191.2 million — but it should easily become just the third Ninja Turtles movie to crack the $100 million mark in North America.

5. Strays

Weekend gross: $8.3M
Total domestic gross: $8.3M
Last weekend: New release
Percent drop: NA

Strays wound up being a mere $153,722,044 short of being the biggest opening weekend of Will Ferrell’s career. So close.

Box office numbers via The Numbers based on Sunday estimates.

Next weekend

Gran Turismo should be able to take the top spot in next weekend’s box office race. Both Barbie and Blue Beetle will probably fall in the $10 million-$15 million range, giving Gran Turismo an open shot at No. 1.