The third installment of Channing Tatum's sultry stripper series, "Magic Mike's Last Dance," outperformed a slow Super Bowl weekend at the box office, bringing in a respectable $8.2 million from just 1,500 North American locations.
Following 2012's "Magic Mike" (which debuted at $39 million) and 2015's "Magic Mike XXL" (which debuted at $12.8 million), it's the franchise's weakest opening to date. The first two movies were enormous box office successes, earning $167 million and $117 million correspondingly on modest budgets. The threequel, which is showing on half as many screens as its predecessors, brought in $5,467 per site, the highest average for a top-five movie theatre.
"Last Dance" saw a worldwide box office increase of $10.4 million, bringing its total to $18.6 million.
The third film, in which Tatum makes a comeback as a stripper with a good heart, wasn't initially planned to be released in cinemas. The Steven Soderbergh-helmed Warner Bros. film, which also stars Salma Hayek Pinault, was commissioned for HBO Max and given a marketing and production budget in line with standards for streaming films. The decision to grant "Last Dance" a theatrical release was made by executives after Discovery acquired the business and David Zaslav was appointed CEO in response to encouragingly favorable test screening results.
The movie will have a difficult time turning a profit during its theatrical run because its budget is in the high $40 million region, not including the $20 million spent on marketing. Nevertheless, the movie will profit more from home amusement than it would have if it hadn't been shown in multiplexes. It also draws attention to the Las Vegas production "Magic Mike Live," whose ticket sales increased as a result of the "Last Dance" first looks and trailer premieres.
The head of the movie advising company Franchise Entertainment Research, David A. Gross, claims that this is a "soft opening" for a comedy-drama sequel. The "Magic Mike" series has been very successful, and this theatrical release will increase the ancillary worth of all three "Magic Mikes," he continues.
The biggest TV event of the year, Super Bowl weekend, is rarely a busy time for heading to the movies, and this Sunday's game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs is no different. Comscore estimates that total ticket sales peaked at $51 million, down from the $84 million and the $75 million produced in 2020 and 2019, respectively.
While timed to Valentine's Day on Tuesday, "Magic Mike's Last Dance" and "Titanic," which Paramount re-released in theatres in celebration of the love epic's 25th anniversary, also served as counter-programming against the big game. Tatum is unquestionably the king of the love holiday; "Magic Mike 3" is his third film to open in the top spot before Valentine's Day, joining "The Vow" from 2012 and "Dear John" from 2010.
In a departure from custom, Warner Bros. withheld pre-release tracking on the research platform Rentrak, which compiles and disseminates daily, down-to-the-minute ticket sales, until Sunday before disclosing total receipts. The move, which is upsetting some competitors, is likely an effort to tightly control the movie's box office coverage because "Last Dance" was anticipated to open to less than the series' first two films. Warner Bros. opted not to respond.
With $6.4 million from 2,464 theatres, "Titanic" finished in third place, which isn't bad for a film that debuted on the big screen 25 years ago and is still broadly accessible at home. However, it falls short of the 2009 film "Avatar" re-release, which brought in $10 million last autumn before the eagerly anticipated sequel's release.
In its ninth weekend of distribution, "Avatar: The Way of Water," another James Cameron blockbuster, took second place with $6.9 million from 3,065 theatres. "Avatar 2" has made a total of $2.176 billion worldwide and $647 million in North America.
Another film that did well in its second outing was Paramount's 80-year-old comedy "80 for Brady," which added $6 million from 3,939 sites despite a 53% drop. The movie, which stars Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, and Sally Field as best friends who travel to the Super Bowl because of their fixation with Tom Brady, has so far brought in $24.9 million. It's a respectable performance for the $28 million budgeted film, which is anticipated to continue to appeal to older female viewers over the next few weeks.
With each movie earning $5.5 million, "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" and "Knock at the Cabin," two Universal Pictures productions, are matched for fifth place. The "Puss in Boots" sequel has made an impressive $158 million so far, and it is currently in its eighth weekend of distribution. In its two weeks in cinemas, "Knock at the Cabin," a psychological thriller by M. Night Shyamalan has brought in $23.4 million.
After a slow start to February, movie theatre proprietors anticipate a boost in business in the coming weeks as MGM's "Creed III" and Disney's newest Marvel adventure, "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," hit theatres.
According to Paul Dergarabedian, a senior Comscore analyst, "this was a very slow weekend for theatres and with the focus on the big game and not the big screen." The good news is that theatres' temporary demise will only last a brief while, as the upcoming "Ant-Man" film is expected to leave a lasting impression and spark a resurging theatrical industry.
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