Box Office: ‘F1' Zooms to $55.6M Opening and $144M Globally, ‘M3GAN 2.0' Bombs With $10M U.S. Start
The Formula One movie — teaming Top Gun: Maverick filmmaker with Brad Pitt — zoomed to an impressive $55.6 million opening in North America in the first major theatrical win for Apple Original Films.
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Warner Bros. is distributing the big-budget summer tentpole on behalf of Apple, with the two companies sharing marketing duties. Overseas, it clocked in at $88.4 million for a worldwide start of $144 million to supplant World War Z ($112 million) and rank as the top global launch of Pitt's multi-decade career, not adjusted for inflation. F1 has a huge advantage in having a lock on Imax screens until Superman opens July 11, along with Dolby Cinemas and other premium large-format screens for part of that time.
'A full throttle final weekend of June is in the books as Apple Original Films' and Warner Bros.' F1 The Movie puts the pedal to the metal in an impressive overperformance for this original summer movie that had one of the most comprehensive and exciting marketing blitzes in recent memory,' says chief Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. 'It paid off big for the film.'
F1, starring Pitt opposite Damson Idris, is a seminal moment for Apple as it tries to jump-start its theatrical ambitions after getting driven off the road with big-budget misses Killers of the Flower Moon, from Martin Scorsese, and Ridley Scott's Napoleon. Director Joseph Kosinski's pic boasts near-perfect exit poll stats from the audience, an A CinemaScore score and strong reviews.
'This success is a testament to the vision of Joe, Jerry, Brad, and Lewis, along with the efforts of the entire cast and crew. Together with Formula One, they've created an inspiring cinematic journey that captures the energy and spirit of the sport,' said Jamie Erlicht, Apple's head of worldwide video, who shares the job with Zack Van Amburg.
One formidable challenge: F1 cost a net $200 million to produce before marketing, if not closer to $300 million, so will need long legs to turn a profit at the box office. At the same time, Apple, like other tech giants making a foray into entertainment, has an entirely different business model than a legacy Hollywood studio.
In the film, Pitt plays an injured former F1 driver who comes out of retirement to team up with a younger driver, played by Idris. Javier Bardem stars as the F1 team owner who orchestrates the scheme.
Taking on Formula One is a bold move since it has never been the marquee sport in the U.S. that it is overseas (top Apple exec Eddy Cue is a lifelong fan and sits on the board of Ferrari NV). In 2013, the wheels flew off of Ron Howard's F1 movie Rush, which topped out at $26.9 million domestically and $97 million globally. F1 is also pacing well ahead of the racing pic Ford v. Ferrari, a biographical action drama set against the backdrop of Europe's famous Le Mans endurance contest. Starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale, that film opened to a decent $31.5 million.
Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton was brought aboard to produce FI alongside Hollywood vet Jerry Bruckheimer, Kosinski, Pitt and Pitt's partners at Plan B, including Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. Another winning move: Hans Zimmer (Top Gun: Maverick) scored the pic.
A jaw-dropping 58 percent of ticket sales were for PLF screens, with Imax alone contributing $27.7 million, or 19.2 percent of the total global kitty, to rank as the fourth-best share in the company's history. Imax worked closely with Kosinski and Bruckheimer throughout the shoot and postproduction process.
Elsewhere, Blumhouse and Atomic Monster's horror pic M3GAN 2.0 flamed out with an estimated domestic opening of $10.2 million, only good enough for a fourth-place finish. The Universal release had been forecasting a $20 million debut, which would still have been $10 million less than the first film's record $30.4 million record launch in January 2023, on its way to earning $117.7 million domestically and $226.3 million globally. Things went south in a major way when it limped to $3.4 millon on its opening day, including $1.5 million in previews.
The pic's global start was an equally disappointing $17.2 million. The sequel cost a modest $25 million to produce before marketing, but that's still more than double M3GAN's miniscule $12 million budget.
Jason Blum's Blumhouse — which has suffered a string of misses this year — and James Wan's Atomic Monster reteamed to make the follow-up. They had hoped the movie would serve as counterprogramming for younger women who have little interest in F1. And while M3GAN 2.0 skewed 53 percent female, simply not enough of the target audience showed up. (Some have groused that the character has turned too Terminator-like, while the story overall is more sci-fi than horror.) In an ironic twist, the sequel earned a B+ CinemaScore, compared to a B for the first pic.
Universal puts up the money for Blumhouse titles, in addition to marketing and distributing, but leaves creative decisions up to horror maestro Blum, the studio's longtime partner.
M3GAN 2.0 is set two years after the AI doll went on a murder spree to protect her young human charge (Violet McGraw) and was subsequently shelved. Her creator (Allison Williams), the aunt of the young girl, is now a high-profile author and advocate for government oversight of AI. But when another AI creature emerges that is even more dangerous, M3GAN is resurrected and mayhem ensues. Filmmaker Gerard Johnstone returned to direct the sequel from a story he wrote alongside Akela Cooper, and based on characters created by Cooper and Wan.
Actors Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps return alongside McGraw and Williams, while franchise newcomers include Aristotle Athari, Timm Sharp and Grammy winner and 11-time Emmy nominee Jemaine Clement.
The weekend wasn't a total wash for Universal as its live-action How to Train Your Dragon cleared the $200 million mark domestically and $454.4 million globally. Now in its third weekend, the DreamWorks Animation-produced pic came in second place with an estimated $19.4 million.
Pixar and Disney's troubled summer event pic Elio tumbled as much as 49 to 50 percent in its second weekend to an estimated $10.7 million for a 10-day domestic total of $42.2 million. The animated title added another $11.4 million overseas for a foreign cume of $30.1 million and $72.3 million against a net budget of $150 million.
Elio came in third domestically, followed by M3GAN 2.0 and Sony's 28 Years Later, which likewise fell off sharply in its second weekend to an estimated $9.7 million for a 10-day domestic total of $50.3 million. Globally, the dystopian zombie pic cleared the $100 million mark, something 28 Days didn't achieve, although the first movie was much more of an indie film.
Like Universal, Disney wasn't entirely bereft as summer live-action hit Lilo & Stitch achieved a massive feat over the weekend in crossing $400 million domestically and $946 million globally. It's only the second Hollywood movie of the year to do so behind A Minecraft Movie.
Lilo, the live-action update of the beloved Disney animated film, opened over Memorial Day weekend opposite Tom Cruise-starrer Mission: Impossible – the Final Reckoning, which finished Sunday with a global haul of $562 million for Cruise, Paramount and Skydance.
June 28, 8:30 a.m.: Updated with revised estimates.June 29, 7:45 a.m.: Updated with revised estimates.
This story was originally published June 27 at 8:47 a.m.Best of The Hollywood Reporter
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