‘Black Widow’ Saves Theaters Taking #1, Weekend Box Office Top 5

by Conan Simmons – July 12, 2021 – 5:00 am

The moment so many fans have been waiting for finally arrived over the weekend as the latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ‘Black Widow’, debuted to $80 million at the box office. This puts it closer to the high expectations of some analysts, who looked for it to make $90 million, and above what it needed on the low end, $67 million. This $80 million dollar weekend ‘Black Widow’ is enjoying puts the overall weekend box office over the $100 million mark for the first time since 2019.

‘Black Widow’ is a day-and-date release streaming on Disney+ for a $30 surcharge and, in an unprecedented moment for the new streaming Hollywood, the studio announced Sunday that ‘Black Widow’ had earned $60 million streaming on Disney+. Revealing streaming earnings is something Disney still hasn’t done for the studio’s other high profile day-and-date releases. What ‘Mulan’, ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ and ‘Cruella’ have earned on the streaming platform can only be guessed at using estimates from third party sources. Look for Disney to have to answer for the enthusiastic earnings reveal later this week as every news outlet will be hammering on their door to find out why they still haven’t told the earnings for those other films.

‘Black Widow’ is receiving mixed to negative reviews as expected. Obviously the ardently loyal Marvel fanbase are mostly praising the film with notable, and near universal, loathing of how the film handles the main villain, the Taskmaster. Many film critics that are non-Marvel fans are giving the film average to slightly poor reviews. The one thing that is unanimous from all critics is how Florence Pugh emerges as the real star of the movie, somewhat sidelining Scarlett Johansson who finally has a solo Black Widow movie after playing the character since 2010’s ‘Iron Man 2’.

The rest of the box office is filled by holdovers from last weekend and performed mostly close to my predictions.

I had predicted ‘F9: The Fast Saga’ to drop an optimistic 35% missing that estimate the most as the film dropped 52%. After two weeks at number one it looks like audiences are ready to move fast and furiously on.

My estimate for ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ was much closer with my prediction of a 40% drop the film fell lower at a 46% loss. ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ is a day-and-date release on the streaming service Peacock. After debuting over the 4th of July weekend the studio, Universal, still hasn’t revealed streaming earnings keeping Hollywood secrecy alive.

Horror film ‘The Forever Purge’ performed a much better than my estimate. It fell only 46% down, my prediction was looking for a 60% drop.

My closest call was ‘A Quiet Place Part 2’, which I predicted would drop 15% for a take of $3.4 million, instead the film fell 27% taking in $3 million. Damn close.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (July 9-11, 2021)

1. ‘Black Widow’ – $80 million – action (debut)
2. ‘F9: The Fast Saga’ – $10.9 million – action (drop $12 million, 52% down)
3. ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ – $8.7 million – animated (drop $7.3 million, 46% down)
4. ‘The Forever Purge’ – $6.7 million – horror (drop $5.8 million, 46% down)
5. ‘A Quiet Place Part 2’ – $3 million – horror (drop $1.1 million, 27% down)

The total for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 comes to $109.3 million. This is an increase of a whopping 87%, gaining $50.8 million, over last weekends total of $58.5 million.

Next weekend look for live action animated hybrid ‘Space Jam 2’ to knock ‘F9’ out of second place. A day-and-date release on HBO Max, another streaming service that doesn’t reveal film earnings, it is not expected to topple ‘Black Widow’ from the high ground.

As strong as this weekend’s box office is don’t expect it to reach those triple digit numbers again until July 30 when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stars in the Disney adventure ‘Jungle Cruise’.