‘Moana 2’ tops the box office again

AP:

The Spider-Man spin-off Kraven the Hunter got off to a disastrous start in North American theatres this weekend.

The movie, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, earned only $11 million, according to studio estimates on Sunday, making it one of the worst openings for a Marvel-adjacent property. Its box office take was even less than the film Madame Web.

The weekend’s other major studio release was Warner Bros’ animated The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which made $4.6 million. Made for about $30 million, the movie is set 183 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings films and was fast-tracked to ensure New Line did not lose the rights to Tolkien’s novels.

Meanwhile, the top of the charts again belonged to Moana 2 and Wicked.

Moana added $26.6 million to its domestic total in its third weekend and $57.2 million internationally, bringing its global tally to $717 million. It’s now the fourth-highest grossing film of the year .

Wicked, which is in its fourth weekend, brought in another $22.5 million to take second place. It has made more than $359 million domestically and in excess of $500 million worldwide.

Gladiator II also made $7.8 million, bringing its domestic total to $145.9 million in four weeks.

Kraven the Hunter is the latest misfire from Sony in its attempt to mine the Spider-Man universe for spin-off franchises without the lucrative web slinger himself. The R-rated film, which faced a number of delays, was originally slated to hit theatres in January 2023.

The film cost a reported $110 million to produce. Internationally, it made $15 million, but its potential for longevity appears limited: It currently carries a 15 per cent ‘fresh’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes and got a C grade on CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences.

Several awards contenders opened in limited release over the weekend, including Paramount’s September 5 about ABC’s coverage of the Munich Olympics hostage crisis. Amazon MGM and Orion’s Nickel Boys, based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer winner about an abusive reform school in Florida.

Some big hitters are on the way in the home stretch of the 2024 box office. Mufasa and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will hit in the coming weeks, along with a bevy of art house and adult releases like Babygirl, Nosferatu and A Complete Unknown.

The box office has seen a dramatic recovery since June, when it was down nearly 28 per cent from the previous year. The deficit now stands at 4.8 per cent.