‘Elvis’ takes the top spot, downing ‘Maverick’
NEW YORK — “Elvis” has won its box-office dance-off with “Top Gun: Maverick.” After the two films reported the same ticket sales Sunday, Monday’s final numbers has “Elvis,” alone, as king of the weekend.
“Elvis” ultimately grossed $31.1 million from Friday to Sunday, according to Warner Bros.’ final figures Monday. That’s a touch above the $30.5 million the studio forecast on Sunday. When film studios report box office on Sunday, they’re able to fairly accurately predict Sunday’s ticket sales.
Paramount Pictures, on the other hand, slightly overestimated how “Top Gun: Maverick” fared in its fifth weekend. After the studio reported the same $30.5 million for the “Top Gun” sequel on Sunday, the studio’s final number came in at $29.6 million.
Regardless, both films performed well. Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley bio-pic opened above expectations, and brought out large numbers of older moviegoers — a segment of the audience that’s been slow to return to theaters during the pandemic.
“Top Gun: Maverick” continued to hold remarkably well, dipping a modest 34% percent in its fifth weekend. Overall, the Joseph Kosinski-directed film starring Tom Cruise has earned about $1 billion worldwide, including more than $520 million domestically.
“Elvis,” starring newcomer Austin Butler as Presley and Tom Hanks as his manager Colonel Tom Parker, came into the weekend with expectations closer to $25 million. Among recent music bio-pics, a $31.1 million debut puts the King ahead of the pace of Elton John (“Rocketman” premiered with $25.7 million in 2019) though not in the same class as Freddie Mercury (“Bohemian Rhapsody” opened with $51.1 million in 2018).
“‘Elvis’ was a risky proposition: the music is dated, the character is not directly familiar, and the lead actor is unproven on the big screen,” David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research wrote in a newsletter. “But critics and audiences are responding. This is the Baz Luhrmann show, a music, dance and sex appeal spectacular — it’s a hit.”
“I’m less concerned with who’s number one and who’s number two, and I’m more concerned that we hit this big number given that this audience has been the slowest to return to movie theaters,” said Jeff Goldstein, distribution chief for Warner Bros.
“For both films this is a big deal, a number one debut for ‘Elvis’ is obviously a big win and for ‘Maverick,’ jumping back into the top spot in weekend 5 is no small feat,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, in a statement.
Most studios came away celebrating, though Disney’s “Lightyear” dropped a steep 65% in its second weekend. After opening softly two weeks ago, the “Toy Story” spinoff grossed $17.7 million domestically, falling to fifth place. “Lightyear,” which has made $152 million worldwide to date, will soon face more competition for families with today’s release of “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”
Counterprogramming came from Universal Pictures’ “The Black Phone,” the Scott Derrickson-directed supernatural thriller starring Ethan Hawke as an escaped killer. The movie, about a child being held in a basement by a masked murderer, generated $23.4 million, Comscore projected. That’s more than the $17 million to $22 million Boxoffice Pro forecast.
A much smaller-scaled film, “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” debuted with good sales in limited release. The warmly received stop-motion animation film, in which Jenny Slate voices a one-inch-tall mollusk with a googly eye, opened with $169,606 on six screens, for a per-screen average of $28,267.
Opening in wide release this weekend is Bleecker Street Media’s “Mr. Malcolm’s List.”