FRIDAY PM: It’s Spidey’s world, and Jacob Elordi and Wile E. Coyote are just living in it. But let’s not ignore the pace we’re seeing on Ketchup Entertainment theatrical release of the abandoned Warner Bros’ Looney Tunes title, Coyote Vs. Acme, which is eyeing third place with $12M-$14M.
That’s a record domestic start for indie Ketchup Entertainment, whose previous opening high was Warner’s other discarded Looney Tunes pic, 2024’s Porky Pig-Daffy Duck feature The Day the Earth Blew Up ($3.1M). Coyote vs. Acme is booked at 3,575 theaters.
RELATED: ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ Review: The Movie Warner Bros Shelved In 2023 Becomes Its Most Entertaining Film Of 2026 & Best Live Action/Toon Hybrid Since ‘Roger Rabbit’
Sony/Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day is seeing a fifth Friday of $5.3M and fifth weekend at $19M, maybe even $20M+ at 3,678 theaters, which would get the movie to an $11M’s breath away from $900M by Sunday. Again, a great No. 1 hold for a title this late in the summer, post-Covid. A year ago at this time, New Line’s Weapons led with $10.4M in its fourth sesh.
Universal’s The Odyssey refuses to let go of second, with a seventh frame of $14.5M, -26%, for a running cume of $564M by Sunday.
Fourth is Sony’s second weekend of Screen Gems/Stage 6/Blumhouse Atomic Monster’s Insidious: Out of the Further at 3,303 sites with a Friday of $3M and 3-day of $9M, -64%, with a 10-day cume by Sunday of $42.5M.
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Fifth goes to 20th Century Studios’ The og Stars from Ridley Scott at 3,330 locations and a very low $3M Friday (including Thursday night’s $850K) and $8M opening. That’s not that far from another auteur’s young star-led feature a year ago, Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing, which starred Austin Butler. That didn’t steal anything and opened to $7.8M and finaled at $19M stateside.
Outside the top five there’s Roadside Attractions and Saban’s R-rated Buddy with an eye on a first Friday plus previews of $2M and 3-day between $4M-$5M. Critics are at 88% certified fresh while the audience likes it at 81%.
FRIDAY AM: Ketchup Entertainment’s dog rescue of Warner Bros Animation’s Coyote vs. Acme was solid in previews with $1.7M. That includes not only Thursday money from showtimes that began at 3 p.m. but also $446K from last weekend’s sneaks in U.S. and Canada. The Dave Green-directed PG live-action/animated hybrid is expected to do plus-or-minus $15M this weekend.
Funny enough, and keep an asterisk in this comp, that’s the same amount of money that Disney 2016’s Zootopia made in preview cash. But that was a different time, and that tentpole was backed by a mega marketing budget. We hear that the P&A spend on Coyote vs. Acme is around $10M after Ketchup’s $50M global acquisition.
A good post-Covid animation comp here is Universal/Illumination’s 2023 Migration, which did $1.5M in previews (granted, during a pre-Christmas weekend) en route to a $5.7M Friday and $12.4M 3-day. For those counting, Warner Bros’ previous Looney Tunes movie, Space Jam 2: A New Legacy, didn’t hold previews when it hit theaters and HBO Max at the same time back in July 2021.
Coyote vs. Acme is 95% certified fresh with critics and 92% with audiences, which will only help the pic. Now the question is whether it expands beyond its core fervent social media fanbase.
Ridley’s Scott’s dystopian-future thriller The Dog Stars, led by Jacob Elordi and Josh Brolin, began with $850K on Thursday. The hope is that this feature could make it to a $12M-$14M start. The comp going into the weekend was the Rami Malek-starring 20th Century Studios thriller The Amateur from last year, but that did $2M in previews for a near-$6M Friday and a $14.8M start. Dog Stars is, of course, way lower in previews. Thursday’s shows began at 2 p.m. for the R-rated feature take on the Peter Heller novel. Critics weren’t yipping for Dog Stars at 40% Rotten. The pic is sharing Imax theaters with The Odyssey and PLFs with Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Sony/Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day ends Week 4 for with $53.3M and a running cume of $869.2M. That’s $30.8M from crossing the nine-century mark at the domestic box office, which would make it only the second title to hit that milestone. At its current running cume level, the pic is 5% ahead of Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the same point in time, which finaled at $936.6M. Weekend 5 is expected to be around $18M, -54%.
