Box Office: ‘The Secrets of Dumbledore’ Opens to Franchise Low, ‘The Batman’ Crosses $750M
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore could not manage to enchant the box office this weekend, opening to the franchise’s lowest number ever.
With only $43M grossed by the end of its opening (domestic) weekend, the third entry in the spin-off series of movies made $19M less than the previous franchise low, which was precisely its predecessor, The Crimes of Grindelwald. It should be noted that all Fantastic Beasts movies have made less money on opening weekend than the Harry Potter saga. And they just haven’t won people over time, with each entry making less than the previous one.
Worldwide, The Secrets of Dumbledore has almost crossed the $200M mark, but with Sonic 2 dominating almost every market in the world, and Doctor Strange 2 on the horizon, it’s not at all guaranteed that the movie will break even (it had a production budget of $200M, which means the studio is looking at a $450M-$500M break-even range, worldwide), and it’s even less likely it will make a profit for them.
The future of the franchise is very much uncertain. J.K. Rowling said years ago they were planning a five-movie arc, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio is waiting to see how the third movie performs to give the go-ahead to the next one. While many will argue it’s probably best to leave it here, due to the many controversies surrounding the franchise, I think it’s possible the studio will give the cast and crew one more movie to wrap up the story, instead of two. They could easily drop Ezra Miller, given the way this movie ends, and Rowling’s controversies are something they will have to live with if they intend to continue the franchise any other way. Let us remember that HBO Max was reportedly starting development on a live-action series a year ago.
The streaming platform is another avenue the studio could explore to wrap up the franchise, and with Zack Snyder’s Justice League they have precedents of dumping stuff they are interested in making, but think is too risky for theaters. That being said, no one will be surprised if The Secrets of Dumbledore is the end of the Fantastic Beasts movies.
Sonic 2 took the #2 spot, with $30M (58.4% drop from week 1), a slightly larger drop than the first movie’s, though the second installment still made more on week 2 than the first. The movie crossed the $230M mark at the worldwide box office, and will probably end up with a number in the $400M-$450M range by the end of its run, worldwide. Paramount is already in development of a third Sonic movie, as well as a Knuckles live-action spin-off series.
The Lost City came in at #3, earning Paramount another $6.5M and placing its total domestic number at $78M. The movie hasn’t grossed a lot overseas, but that could change over the next couple of weeks. Another positive piece of news for this weekend’s box office was Everything Everywhere All at Once, the newest A24 feature, starring Michelle Yeoh, which started making waves at this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival, and expanded this weekend in North America. It made $6.2M and has already collected $18M domestic, after two weeks in wide release. With a $20M budget, the movie will hopefully break even once the international rollout begins. You can check out our review of the movie here.
Lastly, rounding up the top 5, Father Stu, starring Mark Wahlberg as a boxer-turned-priest, collected $5.7M. Morbius plummeted to #6, making only $4.7M in its third week. The movie hasn’t yet crossed the $150M mark, and to break even they will need at least $225M.
On the flip side, The Batman crossed $750M worldwide over the weekend, but since the movie debuted on HBO Max today, it’s very unlikely it will cross $800M by the end of its run. still, the movie is highly profitable, and Warner Bros. should be announcing a sequel soon. Hopefully, it will happen at Comic-Con or this year’s DC FanDome, if they decide to bring that back.
Three new movies will be wide-released in theaters this next week — a new animated film, The Bad Guys, the new Pedro Pascal-Nicolas Cage header, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and the new Robert Eggers epic, The Northman. None of them are tracking really well, and they will all probably make less than $12M each. It’s very likely The Secrets of Dumbledore will drop around 60% in week 2, but still crack the #1 spot. We’ll have to wait and see. Stay tuned for more updates!
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
