Bob Odenkirk’s modestly budgeted sequel Nobody 2 is having to settle for a third-place finish in its domestic box office debut as Zach Cregger’s Weapons continues to fire on all cylinders and stay atop the chart in its sophomore outing, followed by Disney’s family comedy Freakier Friday.
Nobody 2, about a seemingly average suburban dad who leads a double life as a stealth operative, is on course to open on the lower end of expectations with $9.3 million from 3,260 locations after receiving a B+ CinemaScore from audiences (its audience ranking on Rotten Tomatoes is more promising at 89 percent). Its early global total is $14.2 million.
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The first Nobody opened amid the pandemic to $6.8 million on its way to grossing a pleasing $68 million domestically. The sequel cost a modest $25 million to make before marketing, so no one at Universal is losing sleep, since it is sure to make up ground when hitting premium VOD as early as three weeks from now (the studio has perfected the art of PVOD).
From New Line and Warner Bros., Weapons had no trouble staying atop the chart in its sophomore outing with an estimated $25 million from 3,450 locations — a scant decline of 43 percent. That’s a rare feat for a horror film, and cements the movie’s status as a water-cooler sensation. Overseas, it dropped 33 percent to $18.4 million for an early worldwide total of $148.8 million in yet another win for Warners, which paid $38 million for rights to the project.
The female-skewing Freakier Friday, reteaming Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, is likewise grinning in its sophomore outing with an estimated haul $14.5 million from 3,975 cinemas for a worldwide cume of $86.3 million against a budget under $45 million. The body-swap comedy fell 50 percent domestically.
Nobody 2 isn’t the weekend’s only new player, but it is by far doing the best of the bunch.
Spike Lee’s prestige pic Highest 2 Lowest, which reunites him for the first time in 18 years with Denzel Washington, is opening in select theaters before debuting relatively quickly on Apple TV+ in early September. While Apple is making a major push into theatrical — F1: The Movie is one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters and is getting a traditional release in cinemas — Highest 2 Lowest doesn’t appear to be part of that strategy.
A24, which partnered with Apple on Lee’s latest movie, isn’t making grosses public so far, but those with visibility into numbers being reported by some theaters suggest Highest 2 Lowest is doing tepid business for a movie with such a high-profile director and cast, who gathered together for a splashy world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
The Lionsgate-distributed Americana — starring Sydney Sweeney opposite Paul Walter Hauser and Halsey — is bombing in its nationwide debut in 1,123 theaters. The pic opened to an estimated $500,000 for a sixteenth-place finish. The crime-heist movie, which has been well received by critics, has taken more than two years to arrive on the big screen after first premiering at SXSW in 2023. Lionsgate insists the film is part of a multi-platform strategy, including premium VOD, and that its box office performance is in no way a disappointment, financial or otherwise.
Americana opens in the wake of a media firestorm engulfing Sweeney after American Eagle dropped its “Sydney Has Great Jeans” campaign July 23. Almost overnight, some TikTok users took offense to a campaign clip that features Sweeney saying, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.” They claimed the comments promote eugenics since Sweeney is white, blond-haired and blue-eyed. While countless users dismissed such theories as utter nonsense, the debate went viral. Even President Donald Trump weighed in after The Guardian reported that Sweeney registered as a Republican in Florida prior to the 2024 election.
More to come.
Aug 17, 8:15 a.m.: Updated with revised estimates.
This story was originally published Aug. 16 at 10:27 a.m.
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