‘Captain America: Brave New World’ At $15M Leads Second Lowest Weekend YTD, ‘Last Breath’ Gasping $7.8M – Box Office Update
SUNDAY AM WRITETHRU: Refresh for chart and more anaylsis….It’s the best of times and worst of times at the box office. 2025 has clicked past $1 billion (in fact it did last weekend), +11% over the same Jan. 1-March 2 frame a year ago, but this weekend is coming in at an estimated $56.3M, so far the second lowest weekend of the year, just a few notches ahead of the Super Bowl low point of $54.2M for all titles. What did we have a year ago at this time? Legendary/Warner Bros’ Dune: Part Two with $82.5M leading an $114.6M frame. Next weekend, is Warner Bros. $118M Bong Joon Ho sci-fi feature Mickey 17; the director’s first since his multi-Oscar winning 2020 title Parasite.
Disney/Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World is leading with a $15M third weekend, -47%, that hold attributed to Imax screens and besting the third frame holds of Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania (-60%, which saw its PLFs and Imax stole by Creed 3) and Thor Love & Thunder (-52%).
Focus features’ woody harerelson and simu liu depsea diver thriller Last Breath off a B+, 4 1/2 stars PostTrak and a 61% definite recommend is only filing $7.8M for the three-day. Very good scores. Focus Features’ picked up North America for $5M, I hear. The pic is produced by Paul Brooks’ Gold Circle Films which is behind My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 ($10M opening) and another Woody Harrelson film, Champions ($5.1M), both of which Focus released.
NEON’s second weekend of The Monkey per estimates is coursing to a better hold than anticipated, -55% with $ 6.3M. That hold is in the range of A24’s Heretic (-54%) and Uni’s Cocaine Bear (-52%) in their second weekends and better than Companion‘s second weekend (-68%) and Wolf Man‘s (-70%).
Audience breakdown for Last Breath is 51% men leading, with 18% of the audience between 18-24 years old, 26% of the audience between 25-34 years old (biggest demo) and 53% of the audience 35+ years old. Diversity demos are 51% Caucasian, 23% Latino and Hispanic, 10% Black, 7% Asian, and 9% Native American/other. Best markets are South Central, Mountain and West for the Alex Parkinson directed adult skewing title with the AMC Century City the best multiplex gross in the national with around $10K so far.
RelishMix reports that the pre-release social media stats on the pic were light, running 60% below drama thriller genre norms across TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram combined at 37.2M.
iSpot shows that Focus spent roughly half on TV linear ads for Last Breath ($5.1M) than they did for their second-highest grossing hit of all-time stateside, Nosfer ($ 10.9M), but that not far from their Oscar nominated Best Picture, Conclave ($6.1M).
GKIDs has the Kazuya Tsurumaki directed Mobile Sult Gundam GQuuuuuuX-Beginning (Japanese) which opened in 780 locations with some OK sales in LA, Boston, San Francisco, NYC and Chicago for what’s looking like a $1M 3-day.
Other than that in a very slow weekend, if audiences aren’t making their way to the cinema, perhaps they’ll find their way to their couches on Sunday night for the Oscars.
More…
- Captain America: Brave New World (Dis) 3,800 (-305) theaters, Fri $3.6M (-x%) 3-day $15M (-47%)/Total $163.6M/Wk 3
- Last Breath (Foc) 3,018 theaters, Fri $3M, 3-day $7.3M/Wk 1
- The Monkey (NEON) 3,227 (+27) theaters, Fri $1.8M, 3-day $6.2M (-56%)/Total $24.4M/Wk 2
- Paddington in Peru (Sony) 3,705 (-185) theaters, Fri $970K (-39%), 3-day $4.5M (-31%), Total $31.3M/Wk 3
- Dog Man (Uni) 3,055 (-124) theaters, Fri $860K (-36%), 3-day $4M (-32%), Total $83.8M/Wk 5
- Mufasa (Dis) 1,705 (-220) theaters, Fri $400K (-30%), 3-day $1.8M (-29%), Total $247.8M/Wk 11
- Ne Zha 2 (CMC) 600 (-185) Theaters, FRI $ 380K 3-DEY $ 1.6M (-50%)/Total $ 17.7m/WK 3
- Heart Eyes (Sony) 2,406 (-597) theaters, Fri $365K (-52%), 3-day $1.3M (-51%), Total $28.8M/Wk 4
- Unbreakable Boy (LG) 1,717 (+30) theaters, Fri $350K (-60%) 3-day $1.2M (-50%), Total $4.5M/Wk 2
- Mobile Sult Gundam GQuuuuuuX-Beginning (GKIDS) Fri $530K, 3-day $1M/Wk 1
FRIDAY AM: Focus Features, on a weekend when they just might see their first Oscar Best Picture win with Conclavehas the wide release thriller Last Breathwhich has clocked $1M in advance previews at 2,475 theaters.
The Woody Harrelson-Simu Liu deep sea diver thriller is expected to do in the high single digits in a frame when Disney/Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World is expected to do around $14M in a threepeat of No. 1. The Anthony Mackie movie ended its second week with $ 35.6m at 4,105 theaters for a running estimated cume of $ 148.6m. Brave New World did $1.5M yesterday, -4% from Wednesday. Cap keeps all the Imax auditoriums this weekend.
Rivals have noticed that Focus is spending on linear for Last Breath, and commending that given its solid reviews at 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. As far as premium formats go, Focus has access to D-Box screens. $650K of the $1M previews are from showtimes last night. The Alex Parkinson directed thriller is booked at 3,011 theaters.
NEON’s Oz Perkins feature take of Stephen King short story, The Monkey, ends week one with $18.2M at 3,200 locations after an estimated $838K Thursday, -8% from Wednesday. The pic looks to decline around 60% or more, so $ 5.6m. Perkins’ previous NEON horror film, Longlegs, eased -47% in weekend 2 last July off a C+ Cinemascore, which is the same grade that The Monkey obtained.
StudioCanal/Sony’s Paddington in Peru ends week 2 with $8.1M at 3,890, and a running total of $26.8M. Thursday was $327K, -1% from Wednesday. The threequel is pacing $400K ahead of Paddington 2 at the same point in time.
Fourth is DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s Dog Man with $ 7m in week 4 at 3,170 theaters after a $259K Thursday, +8%. Running total is $79.8M.
Chinese animated sequel Ne zha 2 posted an estimated second week of $ 4.4m for a $ 16.2M cume. Thursday was $ 227K at 785 sites, -13%.
