by Conan Simmons – September 7, 2021 – 7:57 pm
Marvel’s latest fantasy adventure surpassed everyone’s predictions. Most outlets using “expert” box office analysts estimated the latest MCU installment would earn $40-$55 million in its opening weekend. If you’ve been reading On Genre you know we predicted $90 million for its holiday opening nearly two weeks prior. As the analysts continuously raised their outlook to $85 million on Friday and higher as the days progressed by Monday the estimates reached the $90 million we predicted. As of this morning, with box office takes across the country more accurately represented, ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ beat out even that high prediction. The total for the Labor Day weekend for the newest number one movie in the Weekend Box Office Top 5 comes to $94.6 million.
A theater only release, this is exactly what the movie needed to accomplish not only to prove that “superhero fatigue” is still a fable but to show that theaters are on the comeback with audiences ready to fill seats again. In fact, the Top 5 movies combined comes to a total of at least 12% higher than Labor Day weekend of 2019 before anyone ever heard of Covid-19. ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ super-smashed the box office record for a Labor Day release that had been held by Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake of the John Carpenter classic ‘Halloween’ which earned $30 million over a decade ago.
The rest of the Weekend Box Office Top 5 are holdovers that eased slightly down for the most part. Horror film ‘Candyman’ dropped 44% which is a middle average for films in their second weekend. ‘Free Guy’ and ‘PAW Patrol’ dropped 18% and 20% respectively and ‘Jungle Cruise’ set anchor with practically no change from last weekend.
The box office performance of ‘Shang-Chi’ should make clear to Disney CEO Bob Chapek that the next Marvel Cinematic Universe film, ‘Eternals’, should also be a theater only release.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (September 3-6, 2021 Labor Day Holiday)
- ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ – $94.6 million – fantasy (debut)
- ‘Candyman’ – $12.5 million – horror (drop $9.9 million, 44% decline)
- ‘Free Guy’ – $11.2 million – comedy (drop $2.4 million, 18% decline)
- ‘PAW Patrol: The Movie’ – $5.3 million – animated (drop $1.3 million, 20% decline)
- ‘Jungle Cruise’ – $5 million – adventure (no change)
Total for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 comes to $128.6 million. This not only is the highest the box office has been since before the pandemic it is also a gain of $78.2 million, an increase of a whopping 155%, over last weekends total of $50.4 million.
‘Shang-Chi’ is expected to maintain its dominance over the box office for the rest of the month even with a widely expected 60% drop-off next weekend. With only two wide releases set for the remainder of September, ‘Copshop’ on the 17th and ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ on the 24th, the Marvel fantasy adventure should stay undefeated.
There are some limited releases coming up that may be of interest. Next weekend will see multiple documentaries from the potential Oscar contender ‘The Alpinist’ to ‘The Capote Tapes’ and ‘The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station’ along with a very interesting horror film, ‘Prisoners of the Ghostland’ starring Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, Nick Cassavetes and Bill Moseley.
The final two weeks of this month will see limited releases for ‘Best Sellers’ starring Michael Caine with Aubrey Plaza, the latest from Clint Eastwood ‘Cry Macho’, biopic ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ and surreal horror musical ‘The Nowhere Inn’. For cinephiles there will also be restorations of anime classic ‘Ghost in the Shell’ and the late Jean-Paul Belmondo’s new wave groundbreaker ‘Breathless’.
October will see the real comeback of theaters even though Paramount has delayed all of their films into next year leaving ‘PAW Patrol’ as their final 2021 release. Sony has upped the release date for ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ to October 1 which will be followed by the forever delayed 007 thriller ‘No Time to Die’. Other notable releases for October will be animated sequel ‘The Addams Family 2’, prequel to HBO’s ‘The Soprano’s’ gangster flick ‘The Many Saints of Newark’, the sci-fi epic ‘Dune’, and Edgar Wright’s time-twisting thriller ‘Last Night in Soho’.
As the Oscars deadline has been reset to a December 31 deadline that limits the contenders for this shortened year. If you’re looking to see what the next Best Picture winner will be it’s going to be hotly contested. Wes Anderson is looking to gain momentum with ‘The French Dispatch’ which he debuted at the Venice Film Festival where Pedro Almodóvar debuted his latest, ‘Parallel Mothers’ starring Penelope Cruz. Ridley Scott is offering the medieval ‘The Last Duel’ and Guillermo Del Toro is aiming to get ‘Nightmare Alley’ into cinemas in time for Christmas.