Lots of things to celebrate at the Lively/Reynolds this weekend (August 9-11, 2024). It Ends With Us opened strong and just a few millions away from Deadpool & Wolverine.
The adaptation of Colleen Hoover's popular novel opened to $50 million at the box office. The Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni (also the director) posted the highest opening weekend for a romance novel adaptation since Fifty Shades of Grey back in 2015.
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| Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively in It Ends With Us. (C) Columbia |
Clearly, stars aligned for this breakout hit. The novel was a sensation no doubt for years that further boosted by TikTok. While there have been some discussions about ageing the characters, putting Blake Lively as lead was a phenomenal decision in hindsight.
Audience split was 84% women, 16% men & 60% of them were from ages 18-34. Friday made up most of the opening numbers with $24 million -not surprising for a film with legions of built-in fans (i.e. The Fault in our Stars). It received an A- Cinemascore which bodes well for Sony that will likely turn this into a franchise.
However, it was a few millions off from this week's top film: still Deadpool & Wolverine. The MCU film only dropped 44% this weekend with $54 million for a total of $493 million in three weeks. With the possible help of the so-called "August legs," hitting $600 million is no longer a question.
Another beneficiary of this is Twisters which saw a strong 34 percent drop this weekend, collecting $15 million for a total of $222 million.
Unfortunately, not everybody was happy this weekend. Borderlands bombed this weekend with a paltry $8.6 million debut. Fans were not happy about the end product and neither were the general audiences. With a budget north of $100 million (60% was covered by foreign presales) and a D+ Cinemascore, this will definitely lose tens of millions for everybody involved.
Neon's Cuckoo starring Hunter Schaffer made a decent opening this weekend. The $7-million horror pic scared $3 million in 1,503 locations which is not far off from Sydney Sweeney's recent Neon horror Immaculate ($5 million). While it got a so-so C+ Cinemascore, it can still play for horror fans for the whole month of August.
Deadline is reporting the overall weekend box office ($161 million) is up 44% vs. last year. With no strikes this year and a stronger slate of films on the second half of the year, 2024 can narrow the gap between 2023.
