‘Barbarian’ is top movie amid late summer box office slump – Boston 25 News

LOS ANGELES — (AP) — Horror flick “Barbarian” won the weekend by grossing $10 million, according to studio estimates on Sunday, amid late-summer box office slump was continuing.

Director Zach Cregger’s debut from Disney’s 20th Century Studios premiered at Comic-Con in San Diego in July and opened on 2,340 screens Friday.

“Barbarian” tells the story of a young woman (Georgina Campbell) who finds her Airbnb-rented home strangely occupied by a stranger (Bill Skarsgård) in a half-ruined Detroit neighborhood. It goes on to subvert several horror conventions.

The barely staggering numbers were expected in an almost consistently sluggish September, with fall’s biggest movies and the holiday season several weeks away. “Barbarian” nearly recouped its $10.5 million budget in its first weekend and accounted for nearly a quarter of all theatrical revenue.

“In a weekend where the overall box office is quite low, the high figure of $10 million is a really strong number for this market,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for the data firm. Comscore. “Horror movies are always an accountant’s dream, and that’s why.”

“Brahmāstra: Part One: Shiva,” an Indian Hindi-language fantasy epic from Star Studios, another Disney subsidiary, was a close second, but playing on just 810 screens.

The film written and directed by Ayan Mukerji, about a DJ named Shiva who discovers a connection to the element of fire and an ability to awaken a supernatural weapon, made $4.4 million in its first weekend in America. North.

Long-running Hollywood fare, “Bullet Train” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” took up the three and four spots.

“Bullet Train” grossed $92.5 million in six weeks and “Top Gun: Maverick” grossed $705.7 million in 16 weeks. It is now the fifth-highest-grossing domestic film of all time, just behind “Avatar” and just ahead of “Black Panther,” and is the highest-grossing North American non-science franchise. -fiction or superheroes.

“This movie is setting superhero numbers,” Dergarabedian said.

Quieter weeks are likely ahead of us before a surge of expected big earnings, including “Halloween Ends” and “Black Adam,” coming in October.

Shortly after, the sequel ” Black Panther: Wakanda Forever “throw it box office holiday season and an even greater set of expectations.

Estimated Friday-Sunday ticket sales at US and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final national figures will be released on Monday.

1. “Barbarian”, 10 million dollars.

2. “Brahmastra, Part One: Shiva,” $4.4 million.

3. “Bullet Train,” $3.25 million.

4. “Top Gun: Maverick,” $3.2 million.

5. “DC League of Super-Pets,” $2.8 million.

6. “The Invitation,” $2.6 million.

7. “Lifemark”, $2.2 million.

8. “Beast,” $1.8 million.

9. ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’, $1.65 million.

10. “Spider Man: No Way Home,” $1.3 million.

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Follow AP Entertainment writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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