Battle at the Box Office 10/2/23

Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie took home the win at the box office this weekend while Saw X course corrected over the last two entries in the franchise.

Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie took in $22.7 million over the weekend, with $45.8 million worldwide.  This is way up from the first Paw Patrol movie, which made $13.1 million back in 2021 but that was also still a pandemic-depressed box office and the first movie was available day and date on Paramount+.  It’s still a solid debut and the CinemaScore is an A, which indicates that Paw Patrol will most likely be the go-to kids/family movie for the foreseeable future but we’ll have to see how it fares this coming weekend.

Saw X took second place with $18.3 million domestically and $29.6 worldwide. This is a huge step up from the previous two Saw movies, especially Spiral which Saw X more than doubled as far as opening weekend.  It also topped the opening of Saw VI, which made $14.1 million in 2009.  Saw X got a B CinemaScore, which is actually pretty good for a horror movie but there’s horror competition for the rest of the month, including this weekend’s The Exorcist: Believer.

The Creator opened in third place with $14 million, which got a mixed reception from both critics and audiences, with people either loving it or thinking it’s pretty but derivative.  The movie took in $32.3 million worldwide so far.  The budget was $80 million, so it’s not a mega disaster like Dial of Destiny or The Flash but it will probably still be a disappointment and we’ll have to see how much it drops off this coming weekend.

The Nun II and The Blind rounded out the top 5.  The Blind made $4.3 million in 1,712 theaters and seemed to draw in the faith-based audience it was looking for during its Fathom event.

Dumb Money expanded wide but didn’t seem to draw in a wider audience, coming in 7th place with $3.3 million, bringing it to $7.1 million domestically so far and not really any global markets as of yet.

Expend4bles cratered in its second weekend, coming off a terrible opening weekend and savage reviews.  The movie dropped 69% in its second weekend and only made another $2.5 million, going from 2nd place to 9th place and almost dropping completely out of the top 10.

The Talking Heads concert film/documentary Stop Making Sense expanded to 786 theaters and took 12th place with just over $1 million.

The Per Theater average went to Story Ave., which took in $9,474 in the 1 theater it was playing in over the weekend.