411 Box Office Report: Longlegs Scores $22 Million Start, Despicable Me 4 Stays #1

Despicable Me 4 held onto the top box office spot this weekend as horror film Longlegs scored big in its opening frame. The fourth film in the main Despicable Me series brought in $44.6 million in its second weekend, down just 40% from its opening weekend. That’s an impressive hold for a film that opened big, and brings the movie to $211.1 million domestically and $437.8 million worldwide.

Despicable Me 4 is currently very well positioned for DreamWorks Animation and Illumination, already into profit against a reported $100 million budget plus marketing. Its hold was the best of the franchise to date and at current tally, it is pacing ahead of all films in the franchise except Despicable Me 2 and the original Minions film. It will not have a difficult time crossing the $300 million mark and will be a big hit for the studios when it’s all said and done.

Meanwhile, NEON has its biggest opening ever by a large margin with Longlegs. The Osgood Perkins-directed horror film got off to a $22.6 million start, a huge opening for a film that was expected to do $8 million to $10 million heading into the weekend. It marks the largest opening for an original horror film, doubling the previous holder in Night Swim’s $11.8 million start, and the best start for original horror since M3G4N’s $30.4 million opening in January of 2023.

There are a number of other marks Longlegs hits as well. It’s Nicolas Cage’s highest opening weekend since Knowing grossed $24.6 million in 2009, and the only independent horror film to open over $20 million in the last decade.

It marks a landmark moment for Neon, which scored another horror hit earlier this year with Sidney Sweeney’s Immaculate. But this is better by a massive degree; by comparison, Immaculate did $24.1 million worldwide, and Longlegs will have beaten that with just domestic numbers by Tuesday morning. This is thanks to a marketing coup and incredibly high buzz around the film; Neon marketed this brilliantly, building the hype slowly since January while keeping plot details scarce. That created a lot of curiosity for what Perkins was going to deliver, and audiences turned out to find out.

It certainly didn’t hurt that the film is getting fantastic reviews. The film is sitting at a very good 87% aggregated average on Rotten Tomatoes, which just made the buzz even bigger. That said, anyone with passing familiarity of Perkins’ filmography knew this wouldn’t be a mass audience-friendly film and the metrics bear that out. It has a C+ CinemaScore and a 66% RT audience score, both of which pretty accurately reflect how polarizing the film’s style is.

Neon isn’t too worried about that at this point, though. Even if the film bottoms out, it’s still a major hit as it cost less than $10 million to produce. The word of mouth isn’t so bad that we should expect it to suffer a historic drop, but combined with the better-than-expected opening this should fall pretty hard next weekend. It should be able to gross in the $50 million range or better by the time it’s done, which will be a major return on investment for the studio.

Inside Out 2 continued to soar toward more box office records, dropping just 32% in its fifth weekend to $20.7 million. The Pixar animated sequel has now totaled $572.6 million domestically and $1.35 billion worldwide, enormous numbers against its $200 million budget. The film is now easily on course to surpass The Incredibles 2’s $608.6 million to become the studio’s highest domestic performer, and it is already there in terms of worldwide numbers.

A Quiet Place: Day One was down 43% in its third frame, bringing in $11.8 million. The prequel held on well considering the surprise success of Longlegs and now stands at $116.2 million domestically and $220.7 million worldwide against its $60 million budget so it’s already a hit. It should end its domestic run somewhere in the $160 million range, on par with the second one.

Fly Me To the Moon was pretty well grounded, as it opened with $10 million. That’s below the $12 million to $14 million that it was expected to do, which was already a low number for a costly film. The Apple Studios romcom was distributed by Sony and reportedly cost a massive $100 million to produce, a mind-boggling number for a period romantic comedy about filming a fake moon landing.

While those numbers are disastrous from a box office perspective, let’s remember that Apple’s films are generally loss leaders to advertise their services. Netflix spends the same kinds of number on their big original films, but their films don’t get theatrical runs (or if they do, get very small ones). So while Fly Me to the Moon will not be profitable in its theatrical run to say the least, it fully fits in with Apple’s business strategy to get people to subscribe to their service – and any theatrical money it gets is just good publicity and extra money for the pile.

That note having been made, Fly Me To the Moon will probably have decent legs. Despite the wonky premise, the film has done moderately well with critics (a 67% RT aggregated score) and is doing very well with audiences at an A- CinemaScore and 88% RT audience rating. The film is targeting a female demographic, and such films generally have decent holds. Fly Me To the Moon should be able to gross $35 million domestically and may get higher than that. It added $9 million overseas for a total $19 million start.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die was off just 34% in its sixth weekend to $4.4 million. The action sequel now grossed $184.9 million stateside and $378 million worldwide, great numbers all in all for a $90 million film. It should finish off with around $$195 million in the US.

Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 continues to fade away, down 54% in its third weekend to $2.4 million. The Kevin Costner western is in full bomb mode, as it has grossed $27 million domestically and $28.5 million against a $50 million-plus. (Costner put up a reported $38 million of the budget himself.)

The film’s performance has been bad enough that New Line is rushing it to SVOD this month and has undated the second chapter, which was previously set to release in August. The plan is to give audiences a chance to find the film in home viewing and add it back to the release calendar at a later date.

MaXXXine was bit hard by Longlegs and slipped more than expected in its second weekend. The final film in Ti West’s X trilogy was down 69% from its opening frame, bringing in $2.1 million. That’s not an entirely surprising development; MaXXXine is proving to be a bit more divisive than the previous two films and again, the massive success of Longlegs squeezed out this film’s audience.

That said, A24 isn’t losing sleep here. The film has already passed Pearl’s total domestic gross of $9.4 million and is dead even at X’s $11.8 million final tally. No word on the film’s budget, but it is believed to cost well below $10 million and the worldwide total stands at $14.7 million. The final domestic take should be around $18 million.

The Tamil-language action thriller Indian 2 opened at #9 with $2 million, a decent enough start. The film is the second part in S. Shankar’s trilogy that began with 1996’s Indian. The film has endured brutal reviews (a 22% RT score) and bad word of mouth (15% RT audience rating) and has grossed $7 million worldwide. No word on the budget but like most Indian cinema, it should vanish from the US charts quickly.

Angel Studios’ Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot did not have the staying power of Sound of Freedom, as it dropped 56% in its second weekend to gross $1.3 million. The faith-based drama has now totaled $9.8 million domestically and should close out around $15 million, neither bad nor great against a $8.5 million budget with little marketing.

Next weekend will see a new box office #1 as Twisters targets an opening in the $50 million to $65 million range.

BOX OFFICE TOP TEN (Three-Day Domestic Numbers)
1. Despicable Me 4 – $44.7 million ($211.1 million total, $437.8 million WW)
2. Longlegs – $22.6 million ($22.6 million total, $22.6 million WW)
3. Inside Out 2 – $20.8 million ($572.6 million total, $1.35 billion WW)
4. A Quiet Place: Day One – $11.8 million ($116.2 million total, $220.7 million WW)
5. Fly Me To the Moon – $10 million ($10 million total, $19 million WW)
6. Bad Boys: Ride Or Die – $4.4 million ($187.9 million total, $378 million WW)
7. Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 – $2.4 million ($27 million total, $28.5 million WW)
8. MaXXXine – $2.1 million ($11.8 million total, $14.7 million WW)
9. Indian 2 – $2 million ($2 million total, $7 million WW)
10. Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot – $1.3 million ($9.8 million total, $9.8 million WW)