It was truly a terrible weekend at the box office. We’re talking about one of the worst weekends in decades. That may sound hyperbolic but it’s no less true. Case in point: Paramount Pictures topped the charts with its original comedic action flick “Novocaine.” Starring Jack Quaid (“The Boys”), it earned $8.7 million. Indeed, the number one movie in the country in mid-March made less than $9 million. One would be hard-pressed to find weekends in the past 30 years where the number one movie made so little.
Unfortunately, it gets worse. This weekend also saw the release of Steven Soderbergh’s new thriller “Black Bag.” Despite having a killer cast led by Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett, it earned just $7.5 million, coming in at number three for the weekend. Meanwhile, last weekend’s winner, the Robert Pattinson-starring “Mickey 17,” landed at number two with $7.51 million. A small victory there. Unfortunately, director Bong Joon Ho’s latest is tremendously expensive and after a disappointing opening weekend, “Mickey 17” is still doomed to flop.
It gets even worse from there. The acclaimed “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie,” also floundered in its debut, taking in just $3.1 million. Is it better than being canceled altogether like “Coyote vs. Acme” was? Sure, but we’re setting the bar pretty low there. Even arthouse favorite A24 floundered this weekend with the release of “Opus,” which earned a terrible $1 million on over 1,700 screens. At $574 per screen, it’s one of the worst per-screen averages in recent memory for a wide release.
The only weekends that were worse happened in 2020 when theaters all around the world were shut down during the pandemic. Those were the most extenuating circumstances imaginable. That was also nearly five years ago.