'Barbarian' Wins a Slow Fall Weekend in Theaters

It was not a good weekend for theater owners, but at least one movie did a bit better than expected. The low-budget horror movie Barbarian was the only new wide release this week, and it also managed to be the top grossing movie. It's been a hit with critics, although audiences have reacted to it as well. And, overall, business at theaters was extremely slow. Read on for details.

Via Box Office Mojo.

The late summer/early fall box office woes continue. Though the new releases opened well on their own terms in this post Labor Day weekend (which was once set to have Salem’s Lot come out, alas it was delayed), they weren’t enough to keep this from becoming the year’s second worst grossing weekend. With an overall box office of $40.3 million, it comes in only ahead of the $34.9 million weekend of January 28-30, which didn’t have a single new wide release. If there’s a positive spin to put on the weekend, it’s that the newcomers overperformed slightly and the weekend fell less than expected, "only” dropping 28% despite larger than usual drops on the holdovers thanks to inflated grosses last weekend with the National Cinema Day $3 ticket promotion last Saturday. If the coming weeks’ releases such as The Woman King and Don’t Worry Darling hit their targets and then some, it could be enough to keep the box office from falling to new 2022 lows over the next month before Halloween Ends opens and ushers the industry out of the current slump.

Disney took the top two slots, first up with Barbarian from 20th Century Studios. The Airbnb horror film opened in a modest 2,340 theaters and became the first film in three weeks to hit the double digits, squeaking past with $10 million, which will hopefully hold when the actuals come out. All in all, a solid opening for the low budget (said to be under $5 million) film with no big stars (Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård and Justin Long aren’t box office draws). However, given the strong hook and exceptional critical response (92% on Rotten Tomatoes), there’s the feeling that it could have gone further with a little more marketing muscle. The C+ CinemaScore isn’t great, but isn’t a dealbreaker for strong legs, as we saw with Hereditary, another well reviewed (90% on Rotten Tomatoes) horror film with a poor CinemaScore (D+), which opened to $13.6 million and had a 3.2 multiplier with a cume of $44 million. We could see similarly long legs for a $30+ million finish, but though that’d be a great outcome, it wouldn’t be nearly enough to save the box office.

Coming in second place is the Bollywood-meets-Marvel fantasy film Brahmastra Part One: Shiva, with $4.4 million from 810 screens, giving it the weekend’s best per theater average with $5.4k. The film, produced by the Disney-owned Star Studios and led by Indian superstars Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, and Amitabh Bachchan, begins a planned cinematic universe and is one of India’s most expensive films at $51 million. The domestic opening is among the best ever for an Indian film, and Brahmastra had a global launch of $26.5 million, $18.9 million of that coming from India, making it the tenth biggest opening ever in its home market.

Get the rest of the story at Box Office Mojo.