Box Office: ‘Toy Story 5’ Heading to $300M U.S., ‘Supergirl’ $40M Opening

SATURDAY AM: Yes, Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 5 is still ruling the box office with a second weekend around $70M+ depending on how big the turnout from families remains today. However, this weekend is about the upset of Warner Bros/DC Studios’ $170M-$186M net production Supergirl, which is filing $40M domestic, another exhibit of how finicky fanboys and fangirls can be when it comes to big screen superhero properties. Global looks to hover around a $75M start with $11M so far abroad from 78 markets/40,000 screens.

CinemaScore yesterday was a B-, which is lower than DC’s Ezra Miller tabloid impacted The Flash (B), Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (B), Ryan Reynolds’ 2011 bomb Green Lantern (B), Shazam: Fury of the Gods (B+), and Marvel Studios’ rock bottom The Marvels (B CinemaScore). Definite recommend on Screen Engine/Rentrak’s PostTrak is 52%, which is low for a planned summer tentpole of this magnitude.

In a further deep-dive on PostTrak, men who showed up at 59% gave Supergirl a very low definite recommend at 45% while women at 41% were a bit better at 62%. Note, Supergirl was never expected to be Superman ($125M). Tracking was originally seeing $50M+, which was still way too low for this property.

Tracking firms saw this coming before summer even fired off: If there were any wobbly event films there were was going to be Amazon MGM Studios’ Masters of the Universe ($29.4M), Supergirl and Universal Amblin’s Disclosure Day. It was clear from most of these pics’ marketing campaigns that they didn’t have any stickiness, and would be challenged in expanding any demos beyond older men. Disclosure Day wound up beating its $30M range opening with a $44.5M U.S./Canada start, which was within the range of Spielberg sci-fi properties, and wound up pulling in the filmmaker’s older skewing faithful.

James Gunn and Peter Safran are tasked at DC Studios with delivering filmmaker driven fare that isn’t cookie cutter ala the previous DC titles. They’re also very vigilant about development, no matter how slow the process will be, even killing some impossibly threaded projects that they initially announced in their Gods and Monsters phase 1 when they took the job. A feature adaptation of Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s very visceral and edgy graphic novel Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow seemed like an appropriate second production that would clearly one-up over any previous iteration of Superman’s cousin that we saw in previous iterations, i.e., the 1984 big screen bomb Supergirl (from original Superman movie producer Alexander Salkind, bit of trivia — it wasn’t released by Warners Bros at the time, rather TriStar), as well as the Greg Berlanti produced, Melissa Benoist starring series which portrayed Kara Zor-El as a career woman. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow was True Grit set in a Guardians of the Galaxy outer-space. Safran and Gunn entrusted Craig Gillespie who has a knack for female empowered properties, i.e. the Oscar winning I, Tonya; Cruella and the Emmy winning Hulu series Pam & Tommy. How could anything go wrong on paper? Clearly, this wasn’t a Stephen Sondheim inspired musical like Joker: Folie a Deux.

Where to begin? The biggest complaints from fanboys at a Burbank press screening last Monday was that they had zero patience for Gillespie’s homage: They didn’t want to see any nods to Guardians of the Galaxy or Mad Max and Furiosa. Been there, done that and don’t ever do that again. Krem the villain was too two dimensional and out of Hellraiser. Jason Momoa as Lobo was welcome, but not funny enough. Give ’em something fresh like Kane Parson’s Backrooms and Curry Barker’s Obsession.

But there’s a horrible reality and that’s that there is a toxicity among fanboys and critics with female-led superhero and action films. Captain Marvel got away with it with a $153.4M domestic opening because she was a bridge to Avengers: Endgame back in the pre-Covid heyday of superhero movies. But you can see in the comments there was a nastiness. Wonder Woman was able to repel such naysay as she’s a beloved superhero who never got her big screen debut. There was a huge want from female moviegoers to see a Wonder Woman movie like they wanted to see a Barbie movie. Also, audiences couldn’t deny Gal Gadot as being a dead ringer for Diana of Themyscira. Critics and fans have their gripes with the pint size House of the Dragon actress Milly Alcock as Kara (PostTrak audiences at 26% said she was the reason why they went to see the movie versus 49% who said they bought tickets because it’s part of a franchise they love).

There’s also the factor of too much Super too soon. Supergirl arrives exactly a year after Superman and next summer we have the sequel to the Man of Steel and Lex Luther movie, Man of Tomorrow, on July 9, 2027.

Supergirl took over all the Imax but split the showtimes on the PLFs with Toy Story 5. Imax reps 23% of ticket sales so far with PLFs at 26% for a 49% market share overall for large format screens. 3D reps 95 of the gross. Even play throughout the U.S. for the Gillespie movie but best in the West, South, South Central, and East. The AMC Lincoln Square in NYC is Supergirl‘s top grossing theater with $88K.

Diversity demos are 40% Caucasian, 30% Hispanic and Latino, 17% Black, and 8% Asian American. Men over 25 led at 41%, women over 25 at 26%, men under 25 at 18%, and women under at 15%. It’s said you need three demos to become a hit, and clearly that under 25 Gen Z/Gen Alpha bunch are not showing up here. Warners really wanted to connect with the under 25 female demographic and did a big push with Ulta Beauty stores and associated products.

A24’s $10M pick-up of Olivia Wilde’s Sundance adult comedy, The Invite, grossed $156K yesterday at seven locations, on its way to a estimated 3-day of $384K or $54,8K per screen average. That would rank as the fourth best opening screen average YTD for the Annapurna production after A24’s The Moment ($106,9K) and Pillion ($60,4K) as well as Magnolia’s Maddie’s Secret ($58,2K). The Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton starring movie is playing in four runs in LA and three in NY. The AMC Century City led the way on Friday with $30K. Very good limited launch here.

Still the overall weekend at the box office isn’t that bad with the 26th frame of the year grossing around $158M for all titles. That’s the second-best post Covid for this late June weekend after 2022’s $190M.

FRIDAY PM: Disney/Pixar Studios’ Toy Story 5 is holding onto No. 1, as we knew it would, but pre-weekend estimates were a bit high. The second weekend now is looking more like $74M at 4,425 sites, which would get the Andrew Stanton-directed animated mover over the $300M domestic in 10 days. And that’s nothing to whine about.

The pic’s second Friday is looking like $22M. At $74M, that’s a -54% second-weekend hold, which is close to the -56% second weekend hold of Incredibles 2 ($80.3M), which was coming off the record domestic opening for an animated movie ($182.6M).

RELATED: The 25 Highest-Grossing Animated Films Of All Time At The Global Box Office

Warner Bros/DC Studios Supergirl right now is coming in at the low end with $40M at 3,602 after having her superpowers depleted by critics at 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. Friday is looking like $18M, which includes the $7.8M domestic previews. No update on international. Earlier today, Warners reported $5.2M so far.

Third place currently is looking like Paramount’s Jackass: Best and Last at 2,855 theaters with $3.6M-$4.3M today (including last night’s $1.2M previews) and 3-day between $8M-$10M. The big-screen version of the MTV reality show is great with critics at 88% fresh and moviegoers as well at 85% on Rotten Tomatoes.

RELATED: ‘Supergirl’ First Reactions: “Mixed” Reviews, Praise Milly Alcock & Jason Momoa’s Roles & Highlight David Corenswet’s Superman As “Peak Casting”

Focus Features’ seventh weekend of Obsession at 2,965 sites is looking at $8.5M, -37%, for a running cume of $232.6M. Today is $2.7M for Curry Barker’s toxic-romance pic.

Fifth belongs to the third weekend of Universal/Amblin’s Steven Spielberg movie Disclosure Day, with $7M, -60%, at 3,357 sites. Running cume by Sunday is $93.2M.

PREVIOUSLY, FRIDAY AM: ‘Supergirl’ Takes Off With $13M First Day At Global Box Office

DC Studios’ second production under the James Gunn-Peter Safran administration, Supergirl, made $13M in its first day at the global box office, a number not far from the first day of Universal/Amblin’s $115M Steven Spielberg movie Disclosure Day, which did $12M two weeks ago.

Broken down, domestic previews were $7.8M, that’s combined from Wednesday fan events and Thursday showtimes that began at 3 p.m. That’s a number above Disney/Marvel Studios’ The Marvels previews of $6.6M ($46.1M U.S./Canada opening in 2023); above DC’s Black Adam, which made $7.6M and opened to $67M in 2022); and under what DC’s The Flash, which did at $9.7M ($55M opening in 2023).

Supergirl overperformed in 11 U.S. markets so far: Los Angeles was 22% above normal levels, New York was +24%, Dallas was +13%, Chicago +17%, San Francisco +14%, D.C. +22%, Philly +14%, Atlanta +11%, and Orlando +30%.

Supergirl‘s initial wave of foreign markets grossed $5.2M. The hope is that the pic clears $80M+ in its global launch at 46,000 screens in 77 foreign markets. China and Japan are part of the offshore suite opening Friday, with France and Belgium bowing next weekend. Domestic opening forecasts have cooled from $50M+ to the upper-$40M+ range start for the feature production, which I’m told cost $170M but others tell me was net $186M. As we told you, Supergirl has more than $100M in media value from its global promotional partner campaign, DC Studios’ biggest ever. Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 5 is expected to lead the weekend in its second frame with around $90M.

Rotten Tomatoes audience score stands at 77%, which is higher than The Flash (63%), Shazam: Fury of the Gods (49%) and Joker: Folie à Deux (31%) and not far from Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (79%).

Meanwhile, Paramount’s Jackass: Best and Last grossed $1.2M from Thursday previews across from more than 2,450 locations. The pic’s domestic outlook is $10M this weekend for the net $10M production. The MTV IP also is going in 19 markets including Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain and the United Kingdom. Six markets will release later, including Australia on July 2. 

RELATED: ‘Jackass: Best And Last’ Trailer: Johnny Knoxville And Company’s Return For Their Final Installment

In another good beat at the summer box office, Paramount Pictures and Miramax’s Scary Movie crossed $100 million at the domestic box office Thursday, becoming the first R-rated comedy to reach the milestone since Girls Trip in 2017 (meaning not R-rated action comedy like the past two Bad Boys sequels, and not R-rated superhero comedy like Deadpool & Wolverine). The film also crossed $100 million at the international box office last weekend, bringing its worldwide total to more than $200 million. Broken down, the cume is $208.5M WW, comprising $100.5M stateside and $108M abroad. The Scary Movie franchise now counts $1 billion at the box office.

Here’s what happened in the past week at the box office: