Broadway Box Office Takes Late Summer Slide; ‘Purlie Victorious’ With Leslie Odom Jr. Joins Roster

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A clutch of Chinese movies released for the end of September holiday season dominated the global box office over the latest weekend. Mainland Chinese-produced films took first, third and fifth places across the planet, according to U.S.-based data service Comscore. Comscore shows “Under the Light,” which released only in mainland China, grossing an estimated $54 million between Friday and Sunday.

Refresh for latest…: Here we are with a sort of hybrid weekend at the international box office: there were fresh entries from the Hollywood studios, as well as major new titles timed to holiday play in local markets, and a holdover that’s continuing to rack up records.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Paramount’s animated sequel “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie” topped the box office in its debut, earning a solid $23 million from 3,989 North American locations over the weekend. Those ticket sales were more than enough to rule over the three other new nationwide releases, which could be categorized as the good (Lionsgate’s gruesome “Saw X“), the meh (Disney and New Regency’s sci-fi thriller “The Creator“) and the ugly (Sony’s Game Stop stock-inspired “Dumb Money“). “Saw X” took second place with $18 million, an impressive start for the 10th entry in the long-running horror series.

according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo.The horror flick, which cost a paltry $10 million to produce, “manages to make you feel something beyond gross-out adrenaline,” New York Times said.Landing in second place was “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie,” which also opened on Friday, with $6.8 million in sales.The computer-animated superhero comedy — based on Nickelodeon’s children’s TV series — stars characters voiced by Kim Kardashian and her daughter, Saint West, along with James Marsden and Kristen Bell. The flick is a sequel to the 2021 original and The Hollywood Reporter said the four-legged franchise is “pitched directly to very young viewers, with little of the sly humor that might amuse their adult chaperones.”Sci-fi action thriller “The Creator,” whose plot centers around the aftermath of a nuclear bomb set off by AI-equipped robots in Los Angeles, came in third with a $5.6 million take.

Leslie Odom Jr‘s daughter gets possessed in the second trailer for the upcoming horror flick The Exorcist: Believer.

The power of Taylor Swift compels you. And it’s also worked its ways on producer Jason Blum, who cast out his The Exorcist: Believer to an earlier October release date to avoid a clash with Swift’s concert film.

The power of Taylor Swift compels you. And it’s also working its ways on producer Jason Blum, who is casting out his The Exorcist: Believer to an earlier release date to avoid a clash with Swift’s concert film.

Aramide Tinubu The final act of the uproarious “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch” opens with a character waving a folding chair through the air, a reference to the August 2023 Montgomery Riverfront Racial Brawl. The wave of shrieking laughs from the audience showcases just how topical Ossie Davis’ 1961 play still is today, 62 years after it first debuted on Broadway. “Purlie Victorious” opens in Southern Georgia in a rundown farmhouse, home to generations of Black sharecroppers.

Long before Slave Play, decades before Ain’t No Mo, there was Purlie Victorious, the Ossie Davis comedy masterwork that, like those descendant plays, fused broad comedy, satirical minstrelsy, racial satire and still-relevant social commentary to create a play that is so encompassing in its views of history and legacy, so generous in its humanity and pinpoint sharp in its take on debts long owed and now demanded that Kenny Leon’s revival, opening tonight on Broadway, feels as current and bracing as a folding chair.

The Masked Singer is back for season 10!

Merrily We Roll Along, the new Broadway revival of the Sondheim classic musical starring Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez, broke the six-performance house record at the Hudson Theatre with a $1.3 million gross in its first week of previews.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “The Expendables 4,” an action-thriller starring Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham, misfired in its box office debut, tumbling to a franchise-low $8.3 million. It landed in ever-so-slightly second place behind “The Nun II,” which collected $8.4 million in its third weekend. It’s possible the order could flip by the time the final tally is revealed on Monday.

A trio of new shows joined Broadway last week to mostly decent box office figures as the fall season begins to take shape.

Major stage and musical performers showed for Joe Biden’s reelection campaign on Monday, with a Broadway for Biden fundraiser in which the president quipped about his age but also put the campaign in stark terms.

Whitney Cinkala Variety has announced the lineup for its annual Business of Broadway Breakfast, presented by City National Bank and taking place in New York on Oct. 2.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter It’s another close race at the box office. The Warner Bros. thriller “The Nun II” is projected to ever-so-slightly outpace the competition with $14.7 million in its second weekend.

Lea Michele treated the final-night audience of Broadway’s Funny Girl to an extra song Sunday, performing “My Man,” popularized by Fanny Brice in 1921 but not included in the musical’s original score.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Oppenheimer” remained the top performing film in South Korea for the third successive weekend. It earned $2.04 million for a 19-day cumulative total of $22.4 million. The row of wins for “Oppenheimer” demonstrates again Korean audiences appreciation of top acting skills.

both were scheduled to drop nationwide on Oct. 13, horror mega-producer Jason Blum decided to move up the film’s release to avoid any “Bad Blood” with Swift.“Look what you made me do,” tweeted Blum, 54, referencing one of Swift’s hits.

Though Labor Day is upon us domestically — and its somewhat equivalents in many overseas markets to mark the end of summer — the hits keep coming as holds this session were strong on the season’s leaders while a new entry surprised. To wit, and starting with the latter: Sony/Escape Artists’ The Equalizer 3 blazed to a $60.6M global start this weekend, to clock the franchise’s best opening ever. Of that, the $26.1M debut in 49 international box office markets was also a new record bow for the Denzel Washington-led series.