‘Jujutsu Kaisen 0’ Leads Busiest Specialty Box Office Weekend in Months

Naman Ramachandran The school half-term holidays saw the release of family-friendly fare at the U.K. and Ireland box office and consequently Paramount’s animated sequel “Sonic The Hedgehog 2” claimed the box office crown. The film debuted with £4.9 million ($6.5 million), according to numbers released by Comscore.The other big family targeted release, Universal’s “The Bad Guys,” debuted in third place with $2.2 million.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterAre superheroes impenetrable at the box office? Can any ol’ comic book character make a killing on the big screen?Sony’s antihero adventure “Morbius,” starring Jared Leto as Spider-Man’s eventual foe, will attempt to answer those questions when the vampire-infused horror movie opens in 3,600 North American theaters over the weekend.“Morbius” is estimated to sink its teeth into $40 million to $50 million in its first three days of release, according to independent tracking services. Sony, in an attempt to temper expectations around a newer Marvel character, is predicting a start closer to $33 million. Those ticket sales would be roughly in line with the Warner Bros.

Sony is further exploiting its end of the Marvel franchise this weekend with the long-delayed Jared Leto dark hero title Morbius. Booked at 4,200 locations, the Marvel vampire protagonist feature is eyeing a studio expected opening of $33M, but could get as high as $40M-$50M.

Everything Everywhere All At Once grossed over half a million dollars on 10 screens in NYC, LA and San Francisco for a hefty $50,965 per-screen-average — a number rarely seen since the pre-Covid old days of theatrical releases and the biggest of the year so far. The mind-melding Sandra Yeogh-starrer directed by the Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) played to sold out crowds including Imax engagements.

The Lost City” led the domestic box office on its premier night Friday.The star-studded flick grossed $11.6 million, according to the IMDB’s Box Office Mojo database.The latest Batman reboot followed with $5.5 million Friday and $317 million cumulatively.Indian epic drama “RRR” also premiered, grossing $5.4 million on its opening night.

J. Kim Murphy After three weeks of “The Batman,” the domestic box office has a new leader.

EXCLUSIVE: Given how late the Oscars are this year on March 27, and how Covid held older adults back from attending cinemas, an Oscar halo effect was never expected to take place at the domestic box office for Best Picture nominees.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros.’ “The Batman” continued atop the U.K. and Ireland box office for the third weekend in a row with £3.3 million ($4.4 million), according to numbers released by Comscore. The film, starring Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz now has a total of £32.6 million.

Angela Bassett is excited for fans to see what the cast and crew of have been working on. The 63-year-old actress shared an update on the upcoming Marvel film during an appearance on  on Monday. When DeGeneres brought up the sequel, noting that it must be difficult to work on the project after the death of former lead Chadwick Boseman, who played King T'Challa in the first film and died in August 2020 at the age of 43 after a private battle with cancer.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief‘The Batman’ flew to an opening weekend of $11.6 million and landed in first place at the box office in China. It was the biggest opening this year in China for a Hollywood title but, with a return of coronavirus problems affecting cinema operations, the result has a tinge of missed opportunity.Data from consultancy Artisan Gateway showed the film amassing $11.8 million including previews from Thursday. Imax reported that the film earned $2 million of that total from its screens or 16% of the films China weekend total.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefRoland Emmerich’s space action film “Moonfall” landed in South Korea at the top of the box office chart. But the country’s continuing COVID problems mean that “Moonfall” and all other titles operated at a desperately low orbit.As the biggest new release of the week Moonfall pushed aside Korean-made “In Our Prime,” the previous weekend’s winner.

A24’s smart slasher/horror X grossed over $4.4M on 2,865 screens to take fourth place at the weekend box office, topping expectations for writer/director Ti West’s return after a six-year absence from film. His first ever wide release, a cross between the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Boogie Nights, is currently Certified Fresh at 96% and has a prequel nearly done and a sequel on the horizon.

“The Batman” earns its third No. 1 weekend with $10 million grossed on Friday and an estimated $39 million weekend total.

J. Kim Murphy It was another easy pathway to the top slot at the domestic box office for “The Batman.” Now in its third weekend, the Warner Bros.

Earlier this week, “The Batman” became just the fifth Hollywood film in the past year to gross over $500 million worldwide and should pass the $300 million domestic mark and $600 million global mark by the end of this weekend. While the new COVID-19 infection surge in China has closed over 25% of theaters in that country as “The Batman” opens there, the film is still on pace to surpass the theatrical runs of “F9” and “No Time to Die” and become only the second Hollywood film to gross over $800 million since the pandemic began.

This is one of the best weekends for new indie releases in some time — a bit of space in theaters to run and audiences slowly, but increasingly, willing to return.

When the major studios zig, other theatrical distributors zag, and in this instance that means taking advantage of putting a wide release out there when the majors were too scared to do so earlier this year with all the Omicron mixed messages. Crunchyroll (ne Funimation) has the anime movie Jujutsu Kaisen 0 which racked up $2.88M in previews last night from 2,003 locations, juiced by 49 Imax auditoriums.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefMainland China’s theatrical box office slipped to its lowest weekend total of the year as the market suffered a combination of rising COVID cases and a lack of new releases.Nationwide box office between Friday and Sunday amounted to just $19.2 million, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. It was the fifth weekend of decline since the splashy opening of eight major titles on Feb.